Make the Moon Great Again — or lose it to China? The new space race heats up

"Once the last golf ball was hit on the last Apollo mission on the moon everybody said: 'okay, what do we do now?'" says Sean O’Keefe, former NASA Administrator under George W Bush.

After the completion of the International Space Station, and the retirement of the costly and dangerous space shuttle programme, interest slowly returned.

With little justification for repeating the moon shots of the Apollo era, any return would require astronauts to stay longer and test the technologies needed to establish a base on the moon as a stepping-stone to places like Mars.

The Artemis programme, named after Apollo’s twin in Greek myth, is NASA's solution. The four-stage programme, in partnership with the European Space Agency and others, aims to test technologies and infrastructure including an orbiting 'Lunar Gateway' to support a human presence on the moon and beyond.
 

In 2022 the first stage, Artemis I, saw the test of a new rocket and uncrewed lunar module called Orion sent around the moon and back to Earth again.

Artemis II, due to launch in 2026, will take four astronauts, including the first woman and first person of colour, around the moon.

Artemis III, slated for 2027, aims to land astronauts close to the lunar south pole – the first humans to walk on the moon since 1972.

No earlier than 2028, Artemis IV will take another crew of astronauts to the moon. This time they will begin the construction of the Lunar Gateway – a space station in orbit around the moon.

When plans for the Artemis programme were being drawn up many in NASA, including its astronaut corps, were reluctant to 'buy in' hardware for their return to the moon from the private space industry.

US Congress, which must sign off on the billions in funding needed for programmes like Artemis, had its own interests too.

Several of NASA’s legacy contractors like Boeing and Northrop Gruman, which built the space shuttle and Apollo-era rockets, are big employers in certain congressional districts. Their representatives lobbied hard to ensure they retained contracts in the new programme – and won.

The result – especially in light of newer, cheaper space launch alternatives – is a bad deal for US taxpayers. In 2023, the US government’s financial watchdog, the General Accounting Office, concluded SLS was "unaffordable".

Early on, its opponents in the space industry nicknamed SLS the "Senate Launch System" - they appear to have been right.

Worse still for the Artemis programme, there is a problem with the Orion capsule.

Cracks in its heat shield that emerged after the Artemis I test flight have led to a two-year delay and yet more costs.

Above all, the Artemis programme relies on too many incompatible elements that were commissioned by different groups within NASA and its prime contractors, according to Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and founder of the Mars Society.

But Artemis is in trouble.

The rocket NASA built to serve the programme, the Space Launch System (SLS), is phenomenally expensive. Almost $13bn has been spent developing it so far and its first launch for Artemis is estimated to have cost $4bn.

SLS might be the largest rocket NASA has ever built but it has a serious flaw. While it can put humans into orbit around the moon from a single launch, it can’t carry them, their capsule and enough fuel to get them back to Earth again.

As a result, the mission requires a separate moon lander, sent in advance, to wait in orbit around the moon. When the astronauts arrive, they must transfer from Orion into this vehicle for the trip down to the lunar surface.  The lander will then carry them back up to Orion for the ride home.

Why, despite all the technological advances since Apollo 11 astronauts went to the moon on a single Saturn V rocket, do 21st-century astronauts have to essentially change trains in order to get back again?

The answer isn’t really rocket science, it’s politics.

The people suggesting those "better ways" now surround Donald Trump in the White House.

Elon Musk is co-heading President Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency.

"If you are coming in with a mandate to seek government efficiency, SLS is a poster child for government inefficiency," says Eric Berger.

As axe-wielder-in-chief, Elon Musk is widely expected to have an eye on SLS. But his direct involvement would be controversial as his SpaceX firm would be a leading contender to build an alternative rocket.

The future of America’s moon mission may also lie in the hands of another tech billionaire and friend of Elon Musk: Jared Isaacman, Trump’s pick for NASA administrator.

Isaacman is a keen supporter of the new, more innovative entrants in the US space market like Space X, Rocket Lab and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.

He also has the unique qualification of being the first civilian to have performed a space walk – on a mission using SpaceX hardware last year that he commanded and paid for.

One of his first acts in the job could be to axe SLS. He’s certainly criticised it and the contracts with companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin that have delivered it.

“The bottom line is, these companies have faced little competition for decades and without that competitive pressure, they have become so bloated they can’t take on a fixed-price project without haemorrhaging cash," he posted on X in October 2024.

He's keen to see new entrants like SpaceX challenge "the big defence primes".

In the Apollo era, there was only one way to get to the moon: on a big rocket designed by NASA and built with taxpayers' money.

Now there are options including reusable, and more affordable, rockets built by self-financing space firms that could be modified to carry the Artemis Orion capsule.

Elon Musk’s Starship rocket is still being tested, but is a credible alternative. 

It’s designed to be reusable and is much cheaper to launch. While it can’t carry as much weight all the way to the moon as SLS, it could make multiple refuelling flights and still get its human payload there for less.

What’s more, a modified Starship has already been chosen as the lander in the current Artemis plans, making SpaceX a simpler choice.

Blue Origin’s new heavy-lifting rocket New Glenn could also carry Orion into orbit.

All this poses a challenge for President Trump, and the billionaire tech bros who now control the fate of America’s moon ambitions.

Failing to address the eye-watering costs of the SLS rocket risks making a mockery of government efficiency. But choosing to cancel a major part of the Artemis programme risks delays as new plans and hardware are developed.

Is it a risk Trump, keen to see America dominate space, is willing to take?

If the Artemis programme continues, no one will want to be in the Oval Office, or at Mar-a-Largo, when China plants a flag on the moon first.

And it could happen.

“China’s goal to get to the moon by 2030 is very doable,” according to Eric Berger.

China first sent humans into orbit in 2003 – 40 years after the Americans – but they’re catching up fast.

Their moon exploration programme, named Chang’e after the Chinese moon goddess, has achieved a 100% success rate and landed four robotic missions.

In July 2023, China announced its plan to land two astronauts on the moon by 2030. Four months ago, it unveiled the spacesuits its crew would wear on the lunar surface.

“They’re very much on track, whereas on our side we have been faced with several delays,” says Dr Svetla Ben-Itzhak, an expert in space and international relations at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC.

According to Daniel Dumbacher, former deputy associate administrator at NASA, it would be a mistake to cancel SLS this late in the game. But if a decision is made to axe it, it has to be made fast.

“Now is not the time to have a major relook at what’s the best rocket,” Dumbacher told the MIT Technology Review in November.

The moon may be NASA’s current objective, but it was Mars that got a mention in Donald Trump’s inauguration speech.

Putting Americans on the red planet isn’t a new presidential ambition – way back in 1989 George Bush advocated sending astronauts back to the moon, and then to Mars.

But few took it seriously. Around 60 million miles from Earth, Mars is at least 250 times further than the moon. The costs of getting there, not to mention the risks (a nine-month journey through the harsh radiation of deep space), kept it firmly on the drawing board.

But with Elon Musk so close to the ear of the US president – the situation is different.

Musk’s political and social views may be mercurial, but his core ambition remains Martian.

“Making humanity multi-planetary” has been a long-term objective of his and SpaceX has 2026 as a potential window for an uncrewed Starship test flight to Mars.

What if he could persuade the president to help pay for it?

“Musk has been talking to Trump who is very receptive about the idea of humans to Mars – Trump sees it as a legacy moment,” says Berger.

It would certainly avoid an expensive and potentially futile “race” to the moon against China.

The potential of missions there to solve mysteries around the origins of the solar system and life on other planets is far greater than those to the moon, argues Robert Zubrin.

But Mars is an expensive project that will probably require international collaboration on a scale far greater than the Artemis programme.

If it’s a Trump-Musk mission – it could be doomed to failure.

Their relationship could easily collapse, and the mission with it.

"Neither one of them works well with other forceful personalities. So we'll see how long that coalition lasts,” says Zubrin.

CREDITS

Reporting: Tom Clarke, science and technology editor

Production: Jessica Breadman, specialist producer

Shorthand production: Michael Drummond, foreign news reporter

Editing: Serena Kutchinsky, assistant editor

Design: Taylor Stuart, designer

Pictures: Associated Press, Reuters, NASA, SpaceX