{"id":231060,"date":"2025-10-21T23:26:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T23:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/231060\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T23:26:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T23:26:17","slug":"nasa-reopens-lunar-lander-contract-and-elon-musk-is-big-mad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/231060\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Reopens Lunar Lander Contract, and Elon Musk Is Big Mad"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX’s most important customer is officially unhappy with the company\u2019s trajectory toward returning American astronauts to the Moon, which may lead to one of Elon Musk\u2019s most hated rivals<\/a> getting that business instead.<\/p>\n

In TV appearances on Monday morning, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said the space agency is reopening the contract to build a crewed lunar lander for Artemis III, the mission that’s set to return American astronauts to the Moon\u2019s surface<\/a> for the first time since 1972 and which President Trump wants to see happen by 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Duffy only named one company as a possible alternative: Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos-owned space firm<\/a> that Musk has spent years mocking as a pretender.<\/p>\n

“SpaceX, an amazing company, they do remarkable things, but they\u2019re behind schedule,\u201d Duffy said during an appearance on Fox & Friends<\/a> after reminding viewers that China continues to advance<\/a> toward landing its own astronauts on the Moon by 2030<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\u201cThe president wants to make sure that we beat the Chinese,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cI\u2019m in the process of opening that contract up. I think we\u2019ll see companies like Blue get involved, and maybe others.\u201d<\/p>\n

That $2.89 billion contract<\/a> was awarded in 2021 and later revised to $4 billion. It calls for SpaceX to develop a Human Landing System version of the upper stage of its giant, fully reusable Starship rocket to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon\u2019s surface and back.<\/p>\n

But with $2.7 billion paid<\/a> so far, Starship has yet to reach orbit after a test-flight campaign that began in April 2023<\/a> and has seen a series of upper-stage explosions<\/a>.\u00a0The 11th launch last month saw Starship\u2019s booster and upper stage both splash down intact<\/a>\u2014with that second stage looking a little cooked<\/a> from the heat of reentry\u2014but the company now has to flight-qualify a new, more powerful Block 3 design<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And things only get harder from there: SpaceX will need to get a version of Starship to orbit, demonstrate orbital refueling from one upper stage to another, repeat that for however many times are required to put enough fuel into a second stage to get it to lunar orbit, and land a test HLS on the Moon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SpaceX has an outstanding record with its Falcon 9 rocket<\/a>, which has been sending astronauts to and from the International Space Station since 2020<\/a>. But Starship is a profoundly more complex design than that partly reusable launch vehicle, in part because Musk\u2019s ultimate ambition for Starship is to use it to colonize Mars<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Duffy repeated his critique of SpaceX later Monday morning on CNBC\u2019s Squawk Box<\/a>, in which he brushed aside NASA\u2019s April 2026<\/a> projection for an Artemis III launch. Instead, that mission won\u2019t happen until “a couple years after” after Artemis II, a crewed lunar flyby<\/a> NASA hopes to launch in February on the Space Launch System rocket it debuted in November 2022<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is, they\u2019re behind,\u201d he said of SpaceX. \u201cThey\u2019ve pushed their timelines out, and we\u2019re in a race against China.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Again, the only alternative that Duffy name-checked was Blue Origin.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m going to let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin,\u201d he said. \u201cIf SpaceX is behind and if Blue Origin can do it before them, good on Blue Origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The confusing part is that NASA already inked a $3.4 billion<\/a> lunar lander contract with Blue Origin in 2023 after Blue protested the earlier SpaceX contract. And that doesn\u2019t envisage a first crewed landing for the Bezos-owned firm’s Blue Moon Mark 2 vehicle<\/a> until Artemis V.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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That large lunar lander would be launched on Blue\u2019s New Glenn heavy-lift rocket<\/a>, which reached orbit on its debut launch in January,<\/a> but would then require its own complicated in-orbit refueling.<\/p>\n

Blue\u2019s Plan B, as Ars Technica\u2019s space journalist Eric Berger reported in early October<\/a>, could involve developing a crewed version of its smaller Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander<\/a>. That spacecraft, with a design that does not require refueling after launch, is due to have its first test mission in early 2026.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Or NASA could award a contract to a more established aerospace company to develop and build a crewed lunar lander from scratch. It is profoundly unclear how that approach would yield an American flag and American bootprints on the Moon before 2030, when Trump\u00a0already plans to slash NASA\u2019s budget<\/a>. However, Lockheed Martin has been providing statements to news outlets like\u00a0Ars Technica<\/a>\u00a0and The New York Times,<\/a> declaring its willingness to step up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘SpaceX Is Moving Like Lightning’<\/p>\n

Musk has not been taking this well, judging from his rage-posting on X over the last two days. He replied dismissively to a post from Duffy on Monday<\/a> in which the acting administrator wrote that \u201ccompetition and innovation are the keys to our dominance in space.” Musk\u00a0wrote<\/a>: \u201cBlue Origin has never delivered a payload to orbit, let alone the Moon,\u201d before clarifying in a second post, \u201c(Useful payload).\u201d<\/p>\n

In a later reply<\/a> to a supportive post from a fan, Musk said no other company could get to the Moon first.\u00a0\u201cSpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry,\u201d he wrote. \u201cMoreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recommended by Our Editors<\/p>\n

(Duly marked.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

In yet another post<\/a>, Musk suggested that China landing people on the Moon before America could return people there as long as the US came to stay: \u201cA permanently crewed lunar science base would be far more impressive than a repeat of what was already done incredibly well by Apollo in 1969.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given Trump\u2019s feelings about China<\/a>, that seems likely to go over as well as suggesting that the president work the gender-neutral demographic buzzword \u201cLatinx\u201d<\/a> into his speeches.<\/p>\n

One plot twist that clearly did not go over well with Musk himself: A Wall Street Journal report Monday<\/a> that said Duffy hopes to become NASA\u2019s permanent administrator instead of a possible renomination of payments billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman<\/a>, a Musk favorite whom Trump un-nominated in May<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The WSJ piece also suggested that Duffy is seeking to move NASA into the Department of Transportation, where he already has what is theoretically a full-time job as secretary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Musk posted a poll asking<\/a> \u201cShould someone whose biggest claim to fame is climbing trees be running America\u2019s space program? \ud83e\udd14\u201d, with the possible answers \u201cYezz, chimps skillz r\u016bl!\u201d or \u201cNoo, he need moar brainz!\u201d<\/p>\n

(Duffy won a tree-climbing competition<\/a> in his twenties during a stint as a professional lumberjack before starring in two reality-TV series, getting a law degree, and serving as a prosecutor and then representing Wisconsin\u2019s seventh congressional district from 2011 through 2019.)<\/p>\n

Through Tuesday morning, Musk pursued this novel notion of customer relationship management<\/a> with such further insults as \u201cSean Dummy is trying to kill NASA!\u201d<\/a> and \u201cThe person responsible for America\u2019s space program can\u2019t have a 2 digit IQ<\/a>. And then he returned to one of his other online obsessions with a string of posts denouncing \u201canti-White racism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Rob Pegoraro writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. He\u2019s covered such developments as the evolution of the cell phone from 1G to 5G, the fall and rise of Apple, Google\u2019s growth from obscure Yahoo rival to verb status, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe forums to Facebook\u2019s billions of users. Pegoraro has met most of the founders of the internet and once received a single-word email reply from Steve Jobs.<\/p>\n


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