Former NASA Administrators Urge Space Agency to Rethink Plans for Artemis Moon Lander

New Nasa lunar contest could pit Elon Musk against Jeff Bezos, as US fears China will win race to Moon

The United States and China are locked in a contest to be the first country to send humans to the lunar surface in half a century. But there’s a developing twist: an emerging competition between American companies to build the landing vehicle that could win this new Moon race for the US. The dust-up over the lunar lander could pit Elon Musk against his billionaire rival Jeff Bezos. And it has already sparked a war of words between Musk and Nasa’…

Former NASA administrators Charlie Broden and Jim Bridenstine call for changes in Artemis lunar lander architecture: “How did we get back here where we now need 11 launches to get one crew to the moon?. We’re never going to get there like this.”

Former NASA Administrators urge space agency to rethink plans for Artemis Moon lander

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 Two former NASA Administrators called on the space agency to rethink its plans to land astronauts on the Moon using SpaceX’s Starship, saying development of the revolutionary vehicle was taking to…

Bolden, Bridenstine Share Their Views on Artemis

Two former NASA administrators are weighing in on the Artemis program and whether the U.S. will get back to the Moon before Chinese taikonauts arrive. Charlie Bolden and his successor Jim Bridenstine agree that getting a new set of American footprints on the Moon by mid-2027, the most recent official target, or even January 2029, a date mentioned by Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, will be challenging. But they differ on the importance of b…