New to Congress, Florida's Haridopolos leads debate on Artemis, moon and China

Yahoo

04-03-2025

Congress began grappling in earnest with the future of NASA'S Artemis program last week amid indications the moon may lose out to Mars under President Trump's new administration.
The Space Coast's new representative in the U.S. House, Mike Haridopolos, led the U.S. House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee in a hearing weighing the rising costs of Artemis' Space Launch System rocket against the threat of losing to China in a new race to return to the moon.
'We stand at a crossroads. The world is watching, and our competitors, like communist China, are racing to beat us there,' Haridopolos, who chairs the subcommittee, said during opening remarks. 'We cannot afford to fall behind. This is an opportunity to prove that America still leads the world in exploration and innovation.'
While no NASA official came to the hearing, it did feature two witnesses discussing how long to stick with the current Artemis program, which has many critics including Trump's close advisor and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
Haridopolos asked the witnesses to gauge the risks and benefits of changing up the Artemis program.
One witness, former NASA official Dan Dumbacher, warned against shifting the focus to Mars. NASA should keep its short-term attention on the moon, he said.
'It's about doing the right thing at the right time,' Dumbacher said. 'Therefore the discussion is not moon or Mars, rather, timing dictates that we must first master the moon and then proceed to Mars.'
Another witness, former executive secretary of the National Space Council Scott Pace, who is now the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, agreed the moon should be the focus, but called for a quick revision to the current Artemis plan.
'A primary concern is the Space Launch System, which is expensive and not reusable,' he said. 'It's time to consider alternatives for going from the Earth to the moon and back.'
He said instead of NASA footing the bill for the complicated SLS rocket, the agency should able to buy heavy-lift services to send payloads to the moon.
To date, only the uncrewed Artemis I mission has made it to space, with the much-delayed crewed Artemis II mission that will fly around but not land on the moon slated for no later April 2026. Artemis III is next up by summer 2027, which would aim to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972.
Artemis is made up of the Orion capsule built by Lockheed Martin and the SLS rocket, made up of a core stage built by Boeing and solid rocket boosters from Northrop Grumman.
A NASA Office of the Inspector General audit in late 2023 cited the cost of each SLS rocket to taxpayers at $2.5 billion, part of the overall ballooning cost of Artemis that was projected to top $93 billion by the time Artemis II launches. The audit said the SLS rocket represented 26% of that cost to the tune of $23.8 billion.
'A revised Artemis campaign plan should be a high priority for the new administrator,' Pace said. 'There may be some painful adjustments with industry and our international partners, but it's better to do so now than to continue on an unsustainable and unaffordable path.'
The OIG audit also recommended NASA look at alternatives for heavy-lift services, citing both SpaceX with its in-development Starship and Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket as options.
Existing contractors and many NASA officials, though, have stumped for sticking with the current plan as the quickest way to return to the moon, as major changes can often mean major delays.
Orion, for instance, was originally part of the Constellation program announced under President George W. Bush, but then was canceled under the Obama administration. Its resurrection as what would eventually be called the Artemis program began in 2012, but it took more than a decade before the first launch.
Pace estimates that switch from Constellation to Artemis added at least five years in the nation's efforts to return to the moon. He said scrapping Artemis entirely would mean the U.S. would certainly not beat China's stated goal of landing their taikonauts on the moon by 2030.
Both Pace and Dumbacher, though, questioned if any American would set foot on the moon by 2030.
Dumbacher, who most recently was the recently the CEO of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and is now an adjunct professor at Purdue University, said the nation should stick with the current SLS rockets at least through the next two missions.
When asked what he would do to ensure the U.S. get back to the moon before China, he said, 'I take advantage of the hardware I already have in the in the barn, and the hardware available in Artemis II and III to go make it happen.'
'We are at a key crossroads for U.S. leadership in space. Our global competitors, primarily China and its allies, are outplanning and outpacing us in their drive to become dominant in space,' he said. 'This is a critical national security and economic concern.'
He said there's no reason to believe China won't hit their 2030 target.
'China has met every space milestone they have proposed within plus or minus a year,' he said. 'The United States must protect our potential economic opportunity, protect our national security, lead the building of the necessary infrastructure, and importantly, lead chartering the rules of the road.'