administrator

NASA’s acting leader seeks to keep his job with new lunar lander announcement

NASA would not easily be able to rip up its existing HLS contracts with SpaceX and Blue Origin, as especially with the former much of the funding has already been awarded for milestone payments. Rather, Duffy would likely have to find new funding from Congress. And it would not be cheap. This NASA analysis, from 2017, estimates that a cost-plus, sole-source lunar lander would cost $20 billion to $30 billion, or nearly 10 times what NASA awarded to SpaceX in 2021.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk, responding to Duffy’s comments, seemed to relish the challenge posed by industry competitors.

“SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry,” Musk said on the social media site he owns, X. “Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words.”

The timing

Duffy’s remarks on television on Monday morning, although significant for the broader space community, also seemed intended for an audience of one—President Trump.

The president appointed Duffy, already leading the Department of Transportation, to lead NASA on an interim basis in July. This came six weeks after the president rescinded his nomination of billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman, for political reasons, to lead the space agency.

Trump was under the impression that Duffy would use this time to shore up NASA’s leadership while also looking for a permanent chief of the space agency. However, Duffy appears to have not paid more than lip service to finding a successor.

Since late summer there has been a groundswell of support for Isaacman in the White House, and among some members of Congress. The billionaire has met with Trump several times, both at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, and sources report that the two have a good rapport. There has been some momentum toward the president re-nominating Isaacman, with Trump potentially making a decision soon. Duffy’s TV appearances on Monday morning appear to be part of an effort to forestall this momentum by showing Trump he is actively working toward a lunar landing during his second term, which ends in January 2029.

NASA’s acting chief “angry” about talk that China will beat US back to the Moon

administrator, artemis, china, NASA, orion, Sean Duffy, sls, Space, startship / Paul Patrick / September 6, 2025

NASA’s interim administrator, Sean Duffy, said Thursday he has heard the recent talk about how some people are starting to believe that China will land humans on the Moon before NASA can return there with the Artemis Program.

“We had testimony that said NASA will not beat China to the Moon,” Duffy remarked during an all-hands meeting with NASA employees. “That was shade thrown on all of NASA. I heard it, and I gotta tell you what, maybe I am competitive, I was angry about it. I can tell you what, I’ll be damned if that is the story that we write. We are going to beat the Chinese to the Moon.”

Duffy’s remarks followed a Congressional hearing on Wednesday during which former Congressman Jim Bridenstine, who served as NASA administrator during President Trump’s first term, said China had pulled ahead of NASA and the United States in the second space race.

“Unless something changes, it is highly unlikely the United States will beat China’s projected timeline to the Moon’s surface,” said Bridenstine, who led the creation of the Artemis Program in 2019. China has said multiple times that it intends to land taikonuats on the Moon before the year 2030.

A lot of TV appearances

Duffy’s remarks were characteristic of his tenure since his appointment two months ago by Trump to serve as interim administrator of the space agency. He has made frequent appearances on Fox News and offered generally upbeat views of NASA’s position in its competition with China for supremacy in space. And on Friday, in a slickly produced video, he said, “I’m committed to getting us back to the Moon before President Trump leaves office.”

Sources have said Duffy, already a cabinet member as the secretary of transportation, is also angling to remove the “interim” from his NASA administrator title. Like Bridenstine, he has a capable political background and politics that align with the Trump administration. He is an excellent public speaker and knows the value of speaking to the president through Fox News. To date, however, he has shown limited recognition of the reality of the current competition with China.

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