Special to CosmicTribune.com, October 22, 2025

Geostrategy-Direct

By Richard Fisher

America is in danger of losing the “second race to the Moon,” a prospect apparently rejected by President Donald Trump, so National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) acting Administrator, and Transportation Department Secretary Sean Duffy, on Oct. 20 injected new competition into the U.S. Moon architecture.

Duffy’s surprise announcement was that as Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship-based Human Landing System (HLS) Moon lander has faced repeated delays, the U.S. will now invite competing Moon lander proposals from other companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, that could result in a massive shakeup of the U.S. Moon architecture but also even the structure of the U.S. space program.

President Trump has apparently cracked the whip or exercised presidential leadership; In an Oct. 20 interview on CNBC-TV Duffy said: “The President and I want to get to the Moon in this president’s term.”

It is not clear who got Trump’s attention, but in a Sept. 3 U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing chaired by Senator (and possible 2028 Presidential candidate) Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jim Bridenstein, the NASA Administrator during Trump’s first term stated, “Unless something changes, it is highly unlikely the United States will beat China’s projected timeline.”

The NASA timeline for the Artemis-III manned return-to-the-Moon mission — with the SpaceX HLS — has shifted from 2024 to 2025 to 2027 and then to 2028, but Trump, who revived the U.S. manned Moon program in 2019 after President Barack Obama had cancelled it in 2010, has apparently made clear he wants Americans back on the Moon before he leaves office in January 2029.

Chinese official and semi-official sources have stated repeatedly that China intends to put people on the Moon by 2030, though it is also possible they could get there in 2029.

With consistency that underscores their determination, China is assembling its Long March-10 space launch vehicle (SLV), Mengzhou manned spaceship and Lanyue manned Moon lander to achieve this goal.

The first result of Trump’s cracking the whip is that the NASA Artemis-II manned circumlunar, or trip around the Moon, is being advanced by two months, from April 2026 to February 2026.

In the CNBC interview Duffy stated, “We think the original timeline was doing this launch in April, we think we can do it in early February, which is really cool,” also noting, “this is the first time in 54 years we’re going back to the Moon.”

But the main problem for the Artemis-III mission is its planned use of the SpaceX Starship-based HLS, an issue because the Starship has yet to complete a full orbital mission, much less demonstrate critical refueling in space, or build and test a prototype of the HLS version of Starship.

On CNBC on Oct. 20 Secretary Duffy explained his new direction:

“SpaceX had the contract for Artemis 3–by the way, I love Space X is an amazing company. The problem is, they’re behind. They push their timelines out and we’re [in a] race against China. The president and I want to get to the moon in this president’s term. So I’m gonna open out the contract. I’m gonna let other other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin. And again, whatever one can get us there first to the moon, we’re gonna take. And if SpaceX is behind a Blue Origin can do it before them, good on Blue Origin, but by the way, we also might have two companies and that can get us back to the moon in 2028. But again, we’re not gonna wait for one company. We’re gonna push this forward and win the second space race against the Chinese.”

The current NASA Moon architecture is to use the 27-ton payload to the Moon Space Launch System (SLS) to transport the 26-ton manned Orion spaceship, to dock with the SpaceX HLS in lunar orbit and transfer crew — and apparently up to 100 tons of cargo — for landing on the Moon.

Can Blue Origin or another rise to this challenge? Its 45-ton and 20 tons of cargo to the Moon Blue Moon Mk 2 lander may have been planned for the Artemis-IV or Artemis-V mission, likely in the early 2030s — too late to beat China.

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