By james art 
A sample from the moon rock, collected in 1972 by Apollo 17 – the last mission of the American moon – once occupied an honorary place on a shelf in the oval office of President Joe Biden. It was a gift from NASA designed to symbolize America’s dedication to return the moon astronauts as part of a program triggered by its predecessor.
But as President Trump returned to a second term, Moon Rock was removed and sent back to NASA. In his opening address last month, Trump also did not mention the moon, and instead seemed to sound the mood of Elon Musk, the head of the newly formed Ministry of Efficiency of the Government (DOG), promising that Americans would “pursue our apparent fate in the stars” and “plant the stars and the stripes of Mars. ”
More importantly, Musk, the founder of SpaceX, is critical of the NASA Artemis program, which Trump started in 2017 to send Americans back to the moon to establish a long-term presence.
In particular, Musk expressed concerns about the massive program firing, the space launch system (SLS). In a recent post of X, he called Mon Mission “distraction”, saying “,” “[W]You go straight to Mars. “The choice of Trump for NASA administrator Jared Isaacman also asked SLS, describing it as” outrageously expensive. ”
Trump’s administration seems to divert from the moon
The Artemis program faces significant challenges. This month, Boeing, the leading SLS contractor, warned employees that up to 400 jobs could be shortened, citing “Artemis revisions and cost expectations”.
Todd Harrison, a space policy expert at the American Institute for Conservative Enterprise, concludes: “The Artemis Program, as provided by the first Trump administration, is effectively dead.”
Harrison suggests that Musk is behind the change from the moon.
“It sounds that it is entirely Elon Musk to whisper in the president’s ear, saying,” This is what we have to do. ”
NASA has already invested about $ 40 billion in Artemis. The project is planned to send astronauts around the moon until April 2026 with Artemis II, followed by lunar landing in 2027. However, the delay in SLS development and problems with the Crew Crew heat shield repeatedly pressed back schedules.
Despite these delays, “We have never been more than 1972. We were on the moon with astronauts from America,” says Thomas Kuligan, a consultant and a former aerospace lobbyist. “I think people do not realize how far we are in these missions. ”
China would take advantage if the United States dropped Artemis
In the meantime, China is moving forward with its plans to send its astronauts to the moon before 2030, and other countries such as Japan and India also focus on the lunar study.
Alan Cutler, president of a deep space study coalition, warns that if the United States is abandoning Artemis, it will give way to the determination of global norms for the lunar exploration of China, reducing America’s influence in space.
“If you do not ensure the leadership position of the moon, it would mean a loss of position not only in space exploration but also in global diplomacy, national security and economic competitiveness,” he says.
Laura Forchik, owner of the Astralytical Space Consultation Company, shares this anxiety.
“Currently, China is undoubtedly a leader in lunar science,” she says. “This is something that the United States must be reoriented with in order to regain this leadership in the scientific community.”
Forczyk and others claim that race to the moon is a marathon, not a sprint. She says it is more important that the United States has a prolonged presence on the moon – a “means of staying in the long term” – and goes beyond what was achieved during Apollo.
There are also fears that the refusal of Artemis would mean abandoning commitments to the Lunar Gateway project, joint efforts between the United States, Canada, Japan, the European Space Agency and the UAE to establish the first space station around the moon.
Where the artemis stands right now
While SLS successfully sent a cut out of Orion’s capsule around the moon in 2022, Artemis still has no way of landing, something that Musk’s Musk must provide. The company’s lunar star, known as the human landing system, is slowly formed as the company won the Treaty in 2021 and it faces some great technical challenges – not least is a complicated orbital charging procedure that never is a complicated orbital procedure that never It was not tried.
“Elon Musk does what he says he will do, but never in time,” notes Forczyk. “So the question is, how long will we decide to wait?”
There are other options. In 2023, NASA assigned a Blue Origin contract led by Jeff Bezos to develop a lunar Lander as a backup of SpaceX’s star ship. Blue Origin has been reported on the way to testing his car on the moon’s surface later this year. However, the company refused to provide NPR to update the car development.
NASA has made significant progress with Artemis II, with 95% of the hardware for the mission orbiting the moon and the astronaut is already underway, according to Cutler. He and others have a hard time believed that the program will be abruptly canceled, especially considering how far they are during planning.
“It is difficult to imagine that this president, who created the Artemis program in his first term, would not want to send the first American astronauts to go to the moon after Apollo,” Kuligan says.
To be sure, SLS has allies on both sides of the path in Congress. The Republican Senator of Alabama Tommy Tuberville, whose country hosts the NASA NASA Space Flight Center and at least 14,000 SLS jobs, recently told Reuters that SLS would be “good”.
“I know there is a lot – because of Elon Musk involved in the Doge situation – there are many rumors, but I have received complete confidence in SLS and the future for them,” he said.
The New York Democratic Reputation Grace Meng, a member of the Budget Loan Committee, a subcommittee of the Budget Committee, sent a letter last week to NASA’s current administrator Janet Petro And calling for “to cancel any access to NASA’s headquarters for Mr. Musk and his staff.”
Musk aims to Mars but this includes great risks
Tim Farar, President of TMF Associates, space consulting, says Musk wants to present a “grand vision for the future of humanity. And obviously going to Mars is something that has never been done before. ”
But this is an extremely ambitious and potentially dangerous endeavor. One of the key arguments for returning to the moon, which is only 240,000 miles, is that it is good proof of Mars, which orbits an average distance of 142 million miles from Earth.
During the missions of Apollo the moon, for example, NASA managed to minimize the exposure to radar to radiation due to the limited duration of missions – the longest of which lasts only 12 days. Going to Mars will not mean a chance of rescue or rapid return to Earth, with the dangers of significantly increased radiation exposure and adverse effects on astronaut bodies due to long -term low gravity exposure and zero gravity.
“Going out to Mars, you talk for 7 to 9 months to get there and about so long to come back,” Harrison says, adding that for radio communications with astronauts on Mars will take “many minutes to allow this signal to this signal to get there. ”
Musk said the first trips to Mars would be dangerous, suggesting that astronauts should be ready to die. Ethos for the development of SpaceX involves the explosion of many missiles to test and troubleshooting, something the company calls an “iterative design process”.
“Musk is very comfortable with the risk … But we will still see how the general public is at this risk,” Farar says.
“And what will be the reaction if everything goes wrong?” He wonders. “You cannot sweep the consequences under the carpet when it comes to people in the space that die.”
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