Trump

The White House Office of Management and Budget dropped its “skinny” budget proposal for the federal government earlier this month, and the headline news for the US space program was the cancellation of three major programs: the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, and Lunar Gateway.

Opinions across the space community vary widely about the utility of these programs—one friend in the industry predicted a future without them to be so dire that Artemis III would be the last US human spaceflight of our lifetimes. But there can be no question that if such changes are made they would mark the most radical remaking of NASA in two decades.

This report, based on interviews with multiple sources inside and out of the Trump administration, seeks to explain what the White House is trying to do with Moon and Mars exploration, what this means for NASA and US spaceflight, and whether it could succeed.

Will it actually happen?

The first question is whether these changes proposed by the White House will be accepted by the US Congress. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have backed Orion for two decades, the SLS rocket for 15 years, and the Gateway for 10 years. Will they finally give up programs that have been such a reliable source of good-paying jobs for so long?

In general, the answer appears to be yes. We saw the outlines of a deal during the confirmation hearing for private astronaut Jared Isaacman to become the next NASA administrator in April. He was asked repeatedly whether he intended to use the SLS rocket and Orion for Artemis II (a lunar fly around) and Artemis III (lunar landing). Isaacman said he did.

However nothing was said about using this (very costly) space hardware for Artemis IV and beyond. Congress did not ask, presumably because it knows the answer. And that answer, as we saw in the president’s skinny budget, is that the rocket and spacecraft will be killed after Artemis III. This is a pragmatic time to do it, as canceling the programs after Artemis III saves NASA billions of dollars in upgrading the rocket for a singular purpose: assembling a Lunar Gateway of questionable use.

But this will not be a normal budget process. The full budget request from the White House is unlikely to come out before June, and it will probably be bogged down in Congress. One of the few levers that Democrats in Congress presently have is the requirement of 60 Senators to pass appropriations bills. So compromise is necessary, and a final budget may not pass by the October 1 start of the next fiscal year.

Then, should Congress not acquiesce to the budget request, there is the added threat of the White House Office of Management and Budget to use “impoundment” to withhold funding and implement its budget priorities. This process would very quickly get bogged down in the courts, and no one really knows how the Supreme Court would rule.

Leadership alignment

To date, the budget process for NASA has not been led by space policy officials. Rather, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and its leader, Russell Vought, have set priorities and funding. This has led to “budget-driven” policy that has resulted in steep cuts to science that often don’t make much sense (i.e., ending funding for the completed Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope).

However, there soon will be some important voices to implement a more sound space policy and speak for NASA’s priorities, rather than those of budget cutters.

One of these is President Trump’s nominee to lead NASA, Isaacman. He is awaiting floor time in the US Senate for a final vote. That could happen during the next week or two, allowing Isaacman to become the space agency’s administrator and begin to play an important role in decision-making.

But Isaacman will need allies in the White House itself to carry out sweeping space policy changes. To that end, the report in Politico last week—which Ars has confirmed—that there will be a National Space Council established in the coming months is important. Led by Vice President JD Vance, the space council will provide a counterweight to Vought’s budget-driven process.

Thus, by this summer, there should be key leadership in place to set space policy that advances the country’s exploration goals. But what are those goals?

What happens to Artemis

After the Artemis III mission the natural question is, what would come next if the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft are canceled?

The most likely answer is that NASA turns to an old but successful playbook: COTS. This stands for Commercial Orbital Transportation System and was created by NASA two decades ago to develop cargo transport systems (eventually this became SpaceX’s Dragon and Northrop’s Cygnus spacecraft) for the International Space Station. Since then, NASA has adopted this same model for crew services as well as other commercial programs.

Under the COTS model, NASA provides funding and guidance to private companies to develop their own spacecraft, rockets, and services, and then buys those at a “market” rate.

The idea of a Lunar COTS program is not new. NASA employees explored the concept in a research paper a decade ago, finding that “a future (Lunar) COTS program has the great potential of enabling development of cost-effective, commercial capabilities and establishing a thriving cislunar economy which will lead the way to an economical and sustainable approach for future human missions to Mars.”

Sources indicate NASA would go to industry and seek an “end-to-end” solution for lunar missions. That is, an integrated plan to launch astronauts from Earth, land them on the Moon, and return them to Earth. One of the bidders would certainly be SpaceX, with its Starship vehicle already having been validated during the Artemis III mission. Crews could launch from Earth either in Dragon or Starship. Blue Origin is the other obvious bidder. The company might partner with Lockheed Martin to commercialize the Orion spacecraft or use the crew vehicle it is developing internally.

Other companies could also participate. The point is that NASA would seek to buy astronaut transportation to the Moon, just as it already is doing with cargo and science experiments through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

The extent of an Artemis lunar surface presence would be determined by several factors, including the cost and safety of this transportation program and whether there are meaningful things for astronauts to do on the Moon.

What about Mars?

The skinny budget contained some intriguing language about Mars exploration: “By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, the Budget ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient.”

This was, in fact, the only budget increase proposed by the Trump White House. So what does it mean?

No one is saying for sure, but this funding would probably offer a starting point for a robust Mars COTS program. This would begin with cargo missions to Mars. But eventually it would expand to include crewed missions, thus fulfilling Trump’s promise to land humans on the red planet.

Is this a gift to Elon Musk? Critics will certainly cast it as such, and that is understandable. But the plan would be open to any interested companies, and there are several. Rocket Lab, for example, has already expressed its interest in sending cargo missions to Mars. Impulse Space, too, has said it is building a spacecraft to ferry cargo to Mars and land there.

The Trump budget proposal also kills a key element of NASA’s Mars exploration plans, the robotic Mars Sample Return mission to bring rocks and soil from the red planet to Earth in the 2030s. However, this program was already frozen by the Biden administration because of delays and cost overruns.

Sources said the goal of this budget cut, rather than having a single $8 billion Mars Sample Return mission, is to create an ecosystem in which such missions are frequent. The benefit of opening a pathway to Mars with commercial companies is that it would allow for not just a single Mars Sample Return mission, but multiple efforts at a lower cost.

“The fact is we want to land large things, including crew cabins, on the Moon and Mars and bring them back to Earth,” one Republican space policy consultant said. “Instead of building a series of expensive bespoke robotic landers to do science, let’s develop cost-effective reusable landers that can, with minimal changes, support both cargo and crew missions to the Moon and Mars.”