WASHINGTON, D.C. (NEXSTAR) — President Trump issued an executive order on Thursday urging NASA to put Americans on the moon by 2028, signing it the same day NASA’s new Senate-confirmed administrator Jared Isaacman took office.
The order, titled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” emphasizes the role of the upcoming Artemis missions for Americans to journey to the moon and Mars.
NASA has targeted April 2026 for the launch of Artemis II. It would take the American astronauts in orbit around the moon — the furthest mission into deep space in human history.
Artemis III would put people on the surface of the moon for the first time in the 21st century. NASA’s website has listed a mid-2027 launch date.
But former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the Senate Commerce Committee in a September hearing he doesn’t think the U.S. will be able to land astronauts on the moon by that date, nor by China’s stated goal of landing astronauts on the moon by 2030.
Trump Moon
A full moon rises behind the half-staff American flag on the south lawn of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
“It is highly unlikely that we will land on the moon before China,” Bridenstine said in September. “We don’t have a landing system for the moon.”
Bridenstine blamed the lander architecture. It relies on the SpaceX Starship. Over the past year, SpaceX has endured multiple setbacks with Starship, including an explosion on a test stand in June, as SpaceX prepared for its tenth test flight.
“It’s a problem. It needs to be solved. And that puts us as a nation at risk of not being the first on the moon,” Bridenstine said in September.
In October, then-acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, also the secretary of Transportation, said he would open up the contract for a moon lander for Artemis III, because of delays with the SpaceX Starship.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointed to an additional $10 billion to fund human space travel in the Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump signed into law in July.
“We’re going back to the moon. We’re going to beat China,” Cruz said in November.
Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) just finished his term as the Chair of the House Science and Space Committee. He said the threat of China pushed Congress to invest more in space.
“For the last 20 years, there’s been a kind of low-balling by Congress in the funding of NASA,” Lucas said. “Whoever controls the off-world controls the future of the whole planet.”
Lucas said the investment in space travel will benefit people on Earth.
“I would argue, had there never been a space program, we wouldn’t all be carrying smartphones and we certainly wouldn’t be carrying GPS equipment to know where we are,” Lucas said.
Isaacman, shortly after he took office, wrote on X that NASA will “lead the peaceful exploration of space and we will NEVER come in second place.”
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