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Mike French (left) hosted a fireside chat with former NASA administrators Jim Bridenstine (center) and Charles Bolden (right) at the 2025 von Braun Space Exploration Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. Image: American Astronautical Society via livestream<\/p>\n
Two former NASA Administrators called on the space agency to rethink its plans to land astronauts on the Moon using SpaceX\u2019s Starship, saying development of the revolutionary vehicle was taking too long and required unnecessary complexity.<\/p>\n
Charles Bolden who ran NASA from 2009 to 2017 and Jim Bridenstine who served as administrator from 2018 to 2021 during the previous Trump administration, joined Mike French, the founder of the Space Policy Group, for an open-ended fireside chat, which closed out the American Astronautical Society\u2019s 2025 von Braun Space Exploration Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.<\/p>\n
French steered the former administrators towards the \u201chot topic\u201d of changes to the Artemis architecture. Specifically, French asked them to weigh in on the Oct. 20 announcement by NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy to reopen a competition for the Human Landing System contract that was won by SpaceX back in 2021.<\/p>\n
Bridenstine said there needs to be better \u201calignment\u201d between the political leaders and industry about the goals and the means of execution in order to be successful in returning humans to the Moon in a timely fashion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re going to beat China to the moon, we\u2019ve got to have SLS. You know, we have to, we have to use what we know works right now today,\u201d Bridenstine said. \u201cSLS is a proven system. Orion is a proven system. The European Service Module is a proven system. What we don\u2019t have is a lander. That\u2019s what we\u2019re missing. That\u2019s the only thing that we\u2019re missing, is a lander.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the U.S. should consider a marshaling of resources in the spirit of the Defense Production Act of 1950. That was a Korean War-era piece of legislation designed to confer power to the President \u201cto influence domestic industry in the interest of national defense,\u201d according to the official congressional summary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going all in to build a landing system as quickly as possible, with a team that would be a small team with authorities, maybe authorities put together by an executive order from the President of the United States, that this is a national security imperative, that we\u2019re going to beat China to the Moon,\u201d Bridenstine said in describing this vision. \u201cAnd in order to get that done, we need to have a small Skunk Works-type organization that can be in charge and make that lander come to reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skunk Works is a division of Lockheed Martin that creates classified, bespoke and developmental aircraft.<\/p>\n
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An artist\u2019s rendering of the Human Landing System version of Starship docking with NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit. Graphic: SpaceX<\/p>\n
Bolden took a less China-centric approach, instead citing concerns with the complicated architecture of SpaceX\u2019s approach to a Moon landing. SpaceX\u2019s plan requires an unspecified number of Starship-Super Heavy launches to low Earth orbit to fill a tanker before offloading that propellant to the Human Landing System iteration of the rocket, which will then fly to a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon and wait to dock with the Orion spacecraft before it heads to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n
Bolden said one of the main reasons why the last Moon program, Constellation, was cancelled was the unnecessary complexity that he argues has now been reintroduced in a new format.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not recognize the architecture when I came back to thinking about NASA again after Jim (Bridenstine) had left office\u2026 and I went, \u2018Holy geez! How did we get back here where we now need 11 launches to get one crew to the moon?\u2019 We\u2019re never going to get there,\u201d Bolden said.<\/p>\n
He suggested that calling for the mission to be accomplished \u201cby the end of a term\u201d or \u201cbefore the Chinese\u201d isn\u2019t helpful in terms of motivating the companies involved in the Artemis program. Bolden said it\u2019s incumbent upon NASA leadership to give contractors a clear idea of the financial buy in from the government and then get both an optimistic and a pessimistic timeline so that a realistic target date can be presented to the President.<\/p>\n
\u201cI forget which chairman it was who asked me, \u2018Well, are you not concerned that the Chinese may beat us to the Moon?\u2019 when we were talking about converting to, transitioning to commercial space,\u201d Bolden said. \u201cI said, \u2018Well, to be quite honest, sir, I\u2019m not concerned at all, because there\u2019s only one first time and we\u2019ve already done that. So let\u2019s just get back there and make sure that when we get there we can stay.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Bridenstine argued that the current architecture using Starship for Artemis 3 crewed landing means that the \u201cprobability of beating China approaches zero rapidly.\u201d He claimed that Duffy\u2019s proposal to reopen the HLS contract for the third Artemis mission was \u201cabsolutely the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20250526_Starship_HLS_Moon.jpg\")
An artist\u2019s rendering of the Human Landing System version of SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket on the surface of the Moon. This depiction was first shared in November 2024. Illustration: SpaceX<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be clear. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an either\/or. It\u2019s not Starship or this. I think it\u2019s both. And I think if this is a national security imperative, the budget needs to reflect that,\u201d Bridenstine said. \u201cLook, if you starve SLS, or even the Exploration Upper Stage, it\u2019s going to cost a lot more money, and you\u2019re still going to lose to China.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you gotta do is you gotta make sure that it\u2019s adequately funded, that ultimately it, when it\u2019s adequately funded, that it\u2019s receiving the resources that it\u2019s supposed to have, and it achieves the objectives that we\u2019re trying to achieve. That\u2019s gotta be the imperative of this country right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
He suggested a more Apollo-style route of launching both Orion and the lander on one flight of the SLS rocket equipped with the Exploration Upper Stage being built by Boeing could be a viable option.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we just unshackled these capabilities and let them move forward quickly, we\u2019d go fast and it\u2019d be cheaper, as a matter of fact,\u201d Bridenstine said.<\/p>\n
New features loading \ud83d\udd03\ud83d\ude80<\/p>\n
The Exploration Upper Stage, set to fly for Artemis IV and beyond, will feature new \u201cuplink\u201d capabilities \u2013 meaning EUS can operate autonomously or be controlled by the crew in-flight or teams on the ground.<\/p>\n
Learn more: https:\/\/t.co\/ZLDDqDhH7C<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/IcPEeVr5TW<\/a><\/p>\n
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An artist\u2019s concept depicting the transfer of fuel from a Starship tanker in low Earth orbit to the Human Landing System variant of the rocket. Graphic: SpaceX<\/p>\n