Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is also serving as the acting head of NASA, delivered a blunt warning to Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Monday: the company is falling “behind” schedule on its contract to return Americans to the moon, and he’s ready to bring in other companies to get the job done.
We’re not going to wait for one company. We’re going to push this forward and win the second space race against the Chinese. SpaceX won a crucial contract in 2021 to provide the lunar landing system for NASA’s Artemis III mission, which will be the first to put astronauts back on the moon’s surface. However, the mission has already been hit with delays. In December, NASA pushed the landing back to 2027.
Now, Duffy is turning up the heat, saying he wants to get “back to the moon in 2028” and that it needs to happen within the current president’s term. To make that happen, he says he’s going to “open up the contracts.” He specifically pointed to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin as a potential competitor that could step in. “They push their timelines out, and we’re in a race against China,” Duffy said of SpaceX.
The warning comes as the space industry continues to face the difficult realities of rocket development. SpaceX’s own massive Starship rocket has had a series of stumbling blocks and explosions during its test flights. Duffy’s threat to bring in competitors is a clear signal that the pressure is on. The U.S. government is determined to get back to the moon, and it’s not willing to let one company’s delays stand in the way.
