Trump wants a moon landing by 2028, so why is NASA already hedging?
Last December, Space.com featured a headline that read: "The US must beat China to the moon, Trump pick for NASA chief Jared Isaacman tells Senate: ‘If we make a mistake, we may never catch up.’" The quote came from now-NASA Administrator Isaacman’s confirmation hearing before the Senate.
That headline was pulled from his opening statement, where Isaacman further stressed: "We are in a great competition with a rival that has the will and means to challenge American exceptionalism across multiple domains, including in the high ground of space. This is not the time for delay, but for action, because if we fall behind, if we make a mistake, we may never catch up, and the consequences could shift the balance of power here on Earth."
I couldn't agree more. The question is, does Isaacman still believe his own warning?
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During a recent interview with Fox News as Artemis II headed toward the moon, Isaacman said, in part: "On my first day on the job during President Trump's second term, he gave us a national space policy, a mandate to go to the moon with frequency, build the moon base, and do the other things like nuclear power and propulsion so someday American astronauts can plant the stars and stripes on Mars …" What? "Go to the moon with frequency"? The president's directive was to land by 2028. That seems like alarming slippage in language from warning that if we don’t beat China to the moon, "we may never catch up, and the consequences could shift the balance of power here on Earth."
Why the seeming backpedaling on that crucial goal? Could it be that Isaacman and his team have come to the very realistic conclusion that, with our current space architecture, it will be impossible for the United States to beat China back to the moon? That it will be impossible to meet President Donald J. Trump’s stated objective of landing Americans back on the moon by 2028?
Not since President John F. Kennedy have we had a president who truly understands the role that United States preeminence in space plays in the protection of our national and economic security. During his iconic speech on September 12, 1962, at Rice University, the young president stressed: "We mean to be a part of it — we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. … Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war."
Kennedy understood then what Trump knows now. The belief by some that once humans cut through Earth’s atmosphere into the vacuum of space, our flaws, greed, prejudices, and military ambitions will be left behind is not only naïve but dangerous. With his executive order titled "Ensuring American Space Superiority," issued in December 2025, the president addressed that reality.
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Not only did it stress "returning Americans to the moon by 2028 through the Artemis Program" but also "Securing and defending American vital national and economic security interests in, from, and to space …" But there is a very real chance that neither is achievable, given that many serious space minds believe our current manned lunar program is a Rube Goldberg-type contraption destined for continual delays and massive cost overruns — or worse.
To be sure, Artemis II and its courageous crew have ignited the imaginations of millions around the country and the world. But for those who do understand space, it also serves as a stark reminder of all that is currently wrong with our program.
The fact is that the basic architecture of the new American moon program has many experts worried. In a piece titled "NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Is Flaming Garbage," Casey Handmer, a former NASA employee and astrophysicist with a Ph.D. from Caltech, explains in detail the problems associated with Orion and the launch system — problems our space leadership knows about but seems to be pretending do not exist.
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The most pressing problem is that, unlike the Apollo moon missions, where the command module and lander were launched on the same rocket, the new massive lander will be built and launched separately and then dock with Orion in space. But once that lander reaches Earth orbit, it will require 20 to 40 rockets to fly to it to fuel it up before they all can head toward the moon.
As Jim Bridenstine — President Trump’s NASA administrator in his first term — stressed during Senate testimony in September 2025, the Starship architecture "is extraordinarily complex. It, quite frankly, doesn’t make a lot of sense if you’re trying to go first to the moon, this time to beat China."
I have long believed Starship builder Elon Musk to be a once-in-a-century mind who lifts humanity with his genius, just as I believe Isaacman to be an exceptional NASA administrator. That said, space — especially when you reinvent the "space wheel" — is a very complicated and unforgiving environment. I speak with many space experts, and not one believes we will return Americans to the moon by 2028 with our current architecture.
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President Trump does know we can’t afford to lose the race back to the moon to China, a nation that, in addition to continually targeting all of our satellites in low and geosynchronous orbit needed for our national and economic security, has taken dead aim at the moon and its resources, especially helium-3.
This isotope litters the surface of the moon and could provide a potentially limitless supply of safe, clean, green energy. Estimates are that the moon’s surface holds millions of metric tons of helium-3, and that just 25 metric tons could fuel U.S. energy needs for a year.
President Trump has literally put too much of his blood, sweat, and tears on the line in service to our nation not to be given the unvarnished truth.
Here's a simple question for his space team: With our current architecture, will we beat China back to the moon? If not, what is your "Plan B" — one that we need to implement immediately?