As the U.S. races against China to land astronauts on the Moon, two American spaceflight titans are locked in their own competition to secure NASA’s victory. The agency’s new chief just sounded the starter’s gun.
Jared Isaacman was sworn in as NASA’s 15th administrator on Thursday. The pilot, two-time commercial astronaut, and tech billionaire is under enormous pressure to get the agency back on track after a year of uncertainty while also ensuring that the U.S. wins the new space race. On his first day on the job, he told Bloomberg TV that he’s going to let competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin propel NASA back to the Moon.
“I don’t think it was lost on either vendor that whichever lander was available first to ensure that America achieves its strategic objectives on the Moon is the one we were going to go with,” Isaacman said.
A space race within a space race
SpaceX and Blue Origin, led by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, respectively, are developing landers designed to carry astronauts to the lunar surface. The first NASA mission to do so will be Artemis 3, which is now slated to launch sometime in 2028 after being pushed back several times.
The latest delay is largely due to stagnant progress on SpaceX’s crew lander—the Starship Human Landing System (HLS)—which NASA contracted for Artemis 3 back in 2021. In October, Acting Administrator Sean Duffy opened up the contract to other companies in an attempt to spur competition and accelerate lander development. Since then, Blue Origin has emerged as the worthiest opponent for SpaceX.
Blue has spent the past two years building its crew lander for the Artemis 5 mission, which aims to land two NASA astronauts on the lunar surface in 2030. The company has taken a two-pronged approach to lander development, working on both cargo- and crew-rated versions of its Blue Moon spacecraft.
The cargo lander, Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1), is expected to perform a demonstration landing on the lunar surface in early 2026. If it succeeds, this will pave the way for the crew-rated Blue Moon Mark 2 (MK2), which could replace SpaceX’s Starship HLS as the Artemis 3 lander.
Isaacman’s push for innovation through competition
The risk of losing the Artemis 3 contract lit a fire under SpaceX. After Duffy opened it up to other vendors, the company presented NASA with a simplified mission architecture but still said it probably won’t be able to land astronauts on the Moon until 2028.
Isaacman intends to keep stoking that fire. Dangling the Artemis 3 carrot in front of two industry leaders is exactly the type of strategy he believes will usher NASA into a new era of commercial partnership and accelerated innovation. He plans to run NASA more like a business than a bureaucracy, leaning heavily on private companies to expedite the agency’s goals.
The competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin will serve as a proof of concept for this strategy—and one with very high stakes. On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order committing the U.S. to a crewed lunar landing by 2028. With this deadline looming, both companies are under serious pressure to get their landers off the ground.
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