Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 2, 2025

Geostrategy-Direct

By Richard Fisher

If the Trump Administration cancels the Gateway small lunar orbiting manned space station, a key project the U.S.-led Artemis Program for lunar exploration, will China take advantage and launch its own “Sino-Gateway” that could greatly enhance China’s strategic position in the Earth Moon system?

The American idea of a small manned space station orbiting the Moon to offer a lower-cost method of sustaining lunar access emerged in 2017 during the first Trump Administration under the leadership of then National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

The goal was to create a “sustainable” means of lunar access, using the $1 billion a shot Space Launch System (SLS) manned space launch vehicle (SLV) that did not carry its own Moon landing vehicle, but connected to the Gateway lunar station, with reusable lunar landers to take people and cargo to the lunar surface.

It appears that less expensive SLVs could have been used to transport astronauts, fuel and cargo to Gateway, while the station could have also performed as a communications node and a platform for testing new technologies.

As it was not a rocket and was compatible with the space manufacturing capabilities of the key partners, Gateway became a key focus for partner participation in the U.S.-led lunar cooperation that emerged from the Trump Administration’s 2017 Artemis Accords of principles governing conduct on the Moon, that as of May 2025 had 55 country signatories.

U.S. prime Northrop Grumman won the initial contract to build Gateway, but the European Space Agency and the European company Thales Alenia Space would build the habitat structure, plus a communications and refueling structure, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) would built cargo resupply and batteries, the Canadian Space Agency would build a robotic arm, and the United Arab Emirates would build an airlock for space walks.

It appears that the core hardware for Gateway has been completed, is being tested and the lunar space station was planned for launch in 2027.

But Gateway has suffered from criticism as being expensive and redundant, and has been opposed by a long list of experts, like Elon Musk, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and Mars booster Robert Zubrin.

As such, the first Trump budget for 2026 cancels the Gateway space station — and the SLS after the Artemis III Moon mission — while it appears that NASA is looking for ways to use what has been so far assembled, with some suggestions that it could serve as the basis for space station around Mars.

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