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 too long and required unnecessary complexity.
Charles Bolden who ran NASA from 2009 to 2017 and Jim Bridenstine who served as administrator from 2018 to 2021 during the previous Trump administration, joined Mike French, the founder of the Space Policy Group, for an open-ended fireside chat, which closed out the American Astronautical Society’s 2025 von Braun Space Exploration Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.
French steered the former administrators towards the “hot topic” of changes to the Artemis architecture. Specifically, French asked them to weigh in on the Oct. 20 announcement by NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy to reopen a competition for the Human Landing System contract that was won by SpaceX back in 2021.
Bridenstine said there needs to be better “alignment” between the political leaders and industry about the goals and the means of execution in order to be successful in returning humans to the Moon in a timely fashion.
“If we’re going to beat China to the moon, we’ve got to have SLS. You know, we have to, we have to use what we know works right now today,” Bridenstine said. “SLS is a proven system. Orion is a proven system. The European Service Module is a proven system. What we don’t have is a lander. That’s what we’re missing. That’s the only thing that we’re missing, is a lander.”
He said the U.S. should consider a marshaling of resources in the spirit of the Defense Production Act of 1950. That was a Korean War-era piece of legislation designed to confer power to the President “to influence domestic industry in the interest of national defense,” according to the official congressional summary.
“We’re going all in to build a landing system as quickly as possible, with a team that would be a small team with authorities, maybe authorities put together by an executive order from the President of the United States, that this is a national security imperative, that we’re going to beat China to the Moon,” Bridenstine said in describing this vision. “And in order to get that done, we need to have a small Skunk Works-type organization that can be in charge and make that lander come to reality.”
Skunk Works is a division of Lockheed Martin that creates classified, bespoke and developmental aircraft.
Bolden took a less China-centric approach, instead citing concerns with the complicated architecture of SpaceX’s approach to a Moon landing. SpaceX’s plan requires an unspecified number of Starship-Super Heavy launches to low Earth orbit to fill a tanker before offloading that propellant to the Human Landing System iteration of the rocket, which will then fly to a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon and wait to dock with the Orion spacecraft before it heads to the lunar surface.
Bolden said one of the main reasons why the last Moon program, Constellation, was cancelled was the unnecessary complexity that he argues has now been reintroduced in a new format.
“I did not recognize the architecture when I came back to thinking about NASA again after Jim (Bridenstine) had left office… and I went, ‘Holy geez! 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,” Bolden said.
He suggested that calling for the mission to be accomplished “by the end of a term” or “before the Chinese” isn’t helpful in terms of motivating the companies involved in the Artemis program. Bolden said it’s incumbent upon NASA leadership to give contractors a clear idea of the financial buy in from the government and then get both an optimistic and a pessimistic timeline so that a realistic target date can be presented to the President.
“I forget which chairman it was who asked me, ‘Well, are you not concerned that the Chinese may beat us to the Moon?’ when we were talking about converting to, transitioning to commercial space,” Bolden said. “I said, ‘Well, to be quite honest, sir, I’m not concerned at all, because there’s only one first time and we’ve already done that. So let’s just get back there and make sure that when we get there we can stay.’”
Bridenstine argued that the current architecture using Starship for Artemis 3 crewed landing means that the “probability of beating China approaches zero rapidly.” He claimed that Duffy’s proposal to reopen the HLS contract for the third Artemis mission was “absolutely the right thing.”
“I want to be clear. I don’t think it’s an either/or. It’s not Starship or this. I think it’s both. And I think if this is a national security imperative, the budget needs to reflect that,” Bridenstine said. “Look, if you starve SLS, or even the Exploration Upper Stage, it’s going to cost a lot more money, and you’re still going to lose to China.
“What you gotta do is you gotta make sure that it’s adequately funded, that ultimately it, when it’s adequately funded, that it’s receiving the resources that it’s supposed to have, and it achieves the objectives that we’re trying to achieve. That’s gotta be the imperative of this country right now.”
He suggested a more Apollo-style route of launching both Orion and the lander on one flight of the SLS rocket equipped with the Exploration Upper Stage being built by Boeing could be a viable option.
“If we just unshackled these capabilities and let them move forward quickly, we’d go fast and it’d be cheaper, as a matter of fact,” Bridenstine said.
New features loading 🔃🚀
The Exploration Upper Stage, set to fly for Artemis IV and beyond, will feature new “uplink” capabilities – meaning EUS can operate autonomously or be controlled by the crew in-flight or teams on the ground.
Learn more: https://t.co/ZLDDqDhH7C pic.twitter.com/IcPEeVr5TW
— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) October 19, 2023
HLS progress
SpaceX began developing its Starship rocket years before it bid to create an HLS variant for the Artemis program. In the years since receiving a $2.89 billion contract for the Artemis 3 mission, SpaceX launched 11 test flights of its integrated Starship-Super Heavy rocket from Starbase, Texas.
The most recent flight earlier this month marked the final launch of the second major iteration of the rocket and teams are working towards the first flight of Starship Version 3. It will be this version of the launch vehicle that will be used to demonstrate an in-space refueling, which will pave the way for an uncrewed landing demonstration on the Moon.
SpaceX has yet to specify the number of flights it will take to fully fuel a tanker version of Starship in low Earth orbit. However, it has been busy in Florida, laying the groundwork for a trio of Starship launch and catch towers.
Kiko Dontchev, Vice President of Launch at SpaceX said it would not start launches of Starship in Florida until the V3 design is proven reliable through test flights from Texas.
While SpaceX as a company hasn’t publicly responded to Duffy’s proposal on the Artemis 3 HLS contract, its founder, Elon Musk, took to name calling on his social media site X, formerly Twitter and attacked Duffy’s experience with space.
“Having a NASA Administrator who knows literally ZERO about rockets and spacecraft undermines the American space program and endangers our astronauts,” Musk posted on Oct. 22, two days after Duffy’s announcement on FOX News and CNBC.
Duffy has not publicly responded to Musk’s comments.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Jacqueline Cortese, Blue Origin’s Senior Director of Civil Space, said that the company was working towards presenting an alternative for an Artemis 3 Moon landing as it continues work developing their plans for the Blue Moon Mark 2 lander, which is on contract for the Artemis 5 mission.
“Since it’s definitely a competitive environment, I probably won’t say too much about it, but we did just kick off that work with NASA. We’re super excited about it. We have a lot of ideas,” Cortese said.
“I will say it this way. Especially with Mk. 1 and some of our preceding work we’re doing, we have what we think are some good ideas about maybe a more incremental approach that could be taken advantage of for an acceleration-type scenario, which is ultimately still on that end path to sustainability, but is perhaps more incremental in near term.”
Lander yes. But what about suits?
There are plenty of suits used on ISS EVA missions, would those not be a good basis for a lunar EVA suit? Apollo overboots, perhaps longer duration PLSS backpacks, newer tech batteries, etc, that seems like a reasonable fasttrack solution.
Unrealistic expectation. Especially considering that NASA can’t even get replacement suits for the failing EVA suits currently used for spacewalks by ISS crew members.
Absolutely the correct response to the foolishness that has overtaken NASA’s decisions regarding Starship.
SLS works. It’s based on known, proven technology with a legacy of reliability harkening back to the Space Shuttle program. Is it expensive? Yes, it is. Is it obsolete? No, absolutely not. Could it be done cheaper? Maybe, but there is a tradeoff you need to make over what COULD work and what DOES work. We aren’t playing a game of IFs or MAYBEs here, guys. SLS is the only way to return Americans to the moon.
Let SpaceX work on Starship over the next 30 years and see if they can put it together, but in the meantime NASA needs to move ahead with what is has right now and what it knows WILL work.
Personally, I think a better approach could have been to launch a heavy lander via SLS Block 1 or even Block 2 into a Lunar orbit (or perhaps do a checkout at Gateway first) followed by a launch of Orion abord Falcon Heavy or another commercial launch vehicle. This way, the landers can be tested in space thoroughly beforehand to ensure a successful touchdown and liftoff from the Lunar surface or if any adjustments are needed they can be worked on at Gateway.
There is a reason Apollo did it the way they did it. It was the safest, most practical method of landing Men on the moon in 1969, and just because they did it 60 years ago doesn’t mean that approach is outdated. Armchair engineers have taken over the internet and love to fawn over Elon’s pet projects that are on a slow course to disappointment.
You are being short sighted to not see how fast Spacex has changed the game, and I watched 11 fly and it was miraculous. Stop acting like Boeing or the old school guys can do this, the only viable, commercially responsible option is Spacex, get the administrators out of the way and let Musk do what he does better than anyone on this planet, innovate
100% on point!
Legacy space industry products cost many times more to achieve the same service level and SpaceX launch cadence makes a joke out of the industry.
NASA keeps making massive schedule changes and paying exorbitant fees to the dinosaurs to keep them relevant.
What elon does best is push authoritarian leaders, spend money to crush democracy. His team does well at space and cars and other things.
Still SpaceX has done amazing things – often because the US Government has funded them.
How, exactly, has Elon spent money to “crush democracy”? More than half the voters might say that he SAVED American democracy in 2024.
Just don’t let Boeing build the Lander…. Look at the mess of Starliner all the money Boeing have spent on it and its a JOKE! I agree that SpaceX idea of using Starship to land on the moon is ridicules and complicated especially when its need refuelling in space. We already have a rocket which can get to the moon or we need is a small lander like the apollo which can fit 3 or 4 people.
Yes absolutely spot on. “Let’s get *in orbit first* just like the last time” matters as well. We *love* lunar landings ….Mars landings even moar….not on the taxpayer dime. Jim Bridenstone was spot on as NASA Administrator and is *still* spot on today.
It is absolutely obsolete.
And why would we want to repeat Apollo’s flags & footprints? We did that 60 years ago. We were already first. Why bother going back, if we aren’t going to set up a permanent habitat there, the requirements of which Apollo-style craft can’t begin to handle.
Both Bridenstine and Bolden represent everything that was wrong with NASA in the past, no vision. These brainless people do not understand that it is not about beating China to put boots on the moon, that race was stupid and won in 1969. It is about the steady advancement of humanity into space and sustainable development. I do not care if Starship takes ten years longer than expected (it will not). Only Starship will be able to get the mass needed for a sustainable base (that can process lunar water ice) onto the surface. Starship is a launch concept ghat will enable large mass to orbit at a realistic cost. This is what the space industry always should have focused on and the failing of the state-owned NASA. Commercial space will open up the future. Instead NASA has achieved little since 1969.
It seems spaceflightnow is on a war against SpaceX. I’m not really sure why but the preponderance of articles condemning Starship is unmistakable.
In reality, YES, Starship is behind. Years behind. Well over 50% of that lands exclusively in the lap of the FAA, which had its own vendetta agains SpaceX. Of course how we got here is only part of the story. It is worth being the lead in to EVERY article because it is a cautionary tale about what happens when human people with a personal agenda hijack government power to serve their own purpose. Hat Tip to “journalists” that seem to have their own personal agenda being equally poisonous.
Where are we now?
Well we are where the “leadership” of Bolden and Bridenstine put us. And that is about half way from their original goal of a Flags & Footprints mission in the late 2030s.
SLS is the answer?
Flight Hardware ALWAYS trumps cool designs. But what is SLS under the hood.
““SLS is a proven system. Orion is a proven system. The European Service Module is a proven system.”
The core stage is a nation bankrupting Billion Dollar a shot monster that discards FOUR STS main engines that are so expensive the entire shuttle program was based around the need to get them back for reuse. Building another handful of them is yet another billion dollar handout for old space.
Even with this though it still cannot get itself off the pad. No. It depends on MISSILE technology for that. Solid fuel is awesome for your ICBM that you are going to stick in a dark dank hole in the ground for generations in case you need to launch it in 5 minutes or less to destroy the world. It is completely unsuitable for manned spaceflight as is responsible for both loss of crew incidents during Shuttle.
Let’s move on to ICPS! The “I” stands for Interim. A barely fit for purpose sludge that is intended to be discarded by Artemis IV. Assuming another $10 billion or so shakes loose to launch it not fewer than 5 years from now.
Orion! A solution desperately seeking a problem it is too big for earth orbit but too small for interplanetary missions. But supposedly JUST RIGHT for lunar missions. Except of course the part where it came within millimeters of burning up on its first mission. Still it is proven! Mostly proven to be on the ragged edge of another single point loss of crew event.
Out with the new, in with the old
So what do these paragons of government waste propose? A clean sheet approach to get flight hardware in 24 months. Never mind that Grumman took almost 7 years.
Of course it would not be a clean sheet. What ALL these parties want is to hand out tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to companies with no possible chance of delivering on the self imposed timeline. Prime Contractor on that list of course is the company without even a failed orbital attempt: Blue Origin.
The real question is WHY? It is completely unknown if the Chinese will attempt a moon landing. It is also unknown if that attempt might come in 2026 or 2046. This self imposed frenzy of 2027 is just a number we are marching towards. Now clearly some sense of urgency was needed to move the timeline in from 2040(-ish) to a realistic goal. But giving Blue Origin 20 billion dollars will not get US boots on the ground 1 day faster than not given them 20 billion dollars.
In fact it isn’t even clear that there is a pervasive reason that the US must put footprints on the moon (again) before the Chinese do. The argument seems to be that while The Outer Space Treaty stymies every attempt at interplanetary exploration it will somehow not hold up once a Chinese lander touches down. Really the only reason you NEED to be there first is so you can fortify your gun positions. And if that is the plan we better be spending that $20 billion on cool-space-lasers, not on proving up Blue Origin.
wow..a well thought out, detailed summary of our current situation. Kudos! And yes, the hate for all things Elon is baffling, especially from the engineering/scientific types who visit this web site.
There are many things in your reply that I agree with but one nit is very wrong – the Shuttle SRBs were NOT responsible for really either loss of Shuttles. Certainly there was no interaction between the loss of the Columbia and the SRBs, it was a failure of NASA to take the loss of foam seriously, foam from the External Tank. We cannot blame the tank, we cannot blame the foam – this was a failure of the people.
And the Challenger did have an interaction between the SRBs and the ET that caused the loss but again that was the people failing to delay the launch by a single day to allow the system to launch in temperatures that it was certified for. Again it was the people that failed.
While I am here I will agree that the “race” characterization is just to try to squeeze money out of Congress. If China lands on people on the Moon in 2030 and we land in 2031 (assuming that everyone gets back home safely) then nothing will change. Calling this a race just puts us back into schedule pressure – this greatly contributed to the loss of Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia.
with this haphazard administration in charge I expect a real disaster in space
А я ожидаю неибежного опрокидывания на Луне 52-метровой каланчи имени Илона Маска!
Этот монстр – Starship HLS совершенно непригоден для Луны.
SLS “Proven”…. Laughable. Its never flown.
Starship hasn’t reached orbit yet, but it clearly has had more tests and successes in a few years than SLS has had in a few DECADES.
Space X wants to go to Mars, the few billions spent on them has transformed space flight.
The companies that support SLS have have spent many more billions, had many more years, and have nothing to show for it.
SLS was successfully used for the Artemis 1 flight
SLS (Boeing) and Orion (Lockheed) has made a trip around the moon without crew 3 years ago and are in the final stages of preparation for a crewed moon fly-by in April of 2026. I guess it depends on your perspective on whether or not this is “nothing to show for it”
The elephant in the room is that nobody cares if the US is first to get back. As was said in the article we were first, and that was 50 years ago. The first to get back is meaningless. What is important is building a permanent base. China is putting together a program where they can launch regularly to build and then resupply a lunar base. SLS and Orion is too expensive and too slow to build to do more than a launch every couple of years. You can’t build and support a base that infrequently. And those paintings of Starship setting upright on a pool table flat lunar surface make me laugh every time I see them. The lunar surface is very rough, way too rough for a tall spindly pencil like that. We already have had a series of missions designed by this generations engineers land on the moon and fall over because they underestimated how hard it was to land on the rough, badly lit surface. Starship is simply the wrong craft to land on the unimproved lunar surface.
Let me add a prediction: SLS will have three or four launches before the program collapses of its own weight. It will be seen in hindsight as a terrible waste of time, and resources, and talent, that accomplished nothing of value.
If we are not able to use other technologies and suppliers and we have to do it as we did 50 years ago, better give up and get on fishing, working the land, or smth like that.
Dear Will,
I hope all is well with you. I’m writing regarding your article, “Former NASA Administrators urge space agency to rethink plans for Artemis Moon lander”. Jim Bridenstine is a paid lobbyist for United Launch Alliance ( https://www.legistorm.com/organization/summary/203836/Artemis_Group_LLC.html ), and the lobbying firm that Mr. Bridenstine founded, leads, and is sole Managing Partner at has received ~$1 mn in lobbying fees from United Launch Alliance in 2025 alone. These large cash payments can be verified at https://lda.senate.gov/system/public/ . United Launch Alliance makes, by far, the largest cash payments of any company to Mr. Bridenstine’s lobbying firm.
While Mr. Bridenstine’s former job as NASA Administrator is relevant context for his assessment of Lockheed/Boeing products , Spaceflight Now readers would likely benefit from knowing – in articles about Lockheed/Boeing products – the additional balancing context of Mr. Bridenstine’s current job. As his small lobbying firm has received ~$1mn in lobbying fees from ULA in 2025 alone, much more cash than from other companies, he is primarily a lobbyist for Lockheed/Boeing.
Best,
Edwin
Well stated
starship is a financial threat to the dinosaurs of the space industry that are used to cost plus deals and all the pork profits these goons have gotten over the past thirty plus years. thats why they are against starship. its a legit threat to their buddies profit streams at the taxpayers expense when sls costs billions per launch and cant be launched but maybe once a year at best. meanwhile starship is gonna get launch costs way down and be able to launch way more per year….dont forget it took 15 years with “proven technologies” to get close to a second sls launch. time to end the jobs entitlement program called sls for a more cost sensible program