\n<\/p>\n
Elon Musk takes a bow at NASA HQ after a successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.<\/span>Paul Hennessy\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket\/Getty<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Elon Musk<\/span> has long been in an on-again, off-again relationship with the moon. Though just last year he called it \u201ca distraction\u201d<\/a>\u2014saying his focus was shifting exclusively to Mars\u2014he now seems to be rekindling things with our natural satellite<\/a>. And regardless of his own feelings about the moon, NASA is paying him to get us there again.<\/p>\n The Artemis II mission<\/a>, which returned just a week ago, set a new record for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. But looping around the moon\u2014as the four astronauts did during their nine days in space\u2014is not the project\u2019s paramount goal. By 2028, NASA plans for astronauts to touch down on the lunar surface, and while they\u2019ve now demonstrated we can still shoot for the moon, landing there is another story.<\/p>\n No human has set foot on the moon since 1972, and the landing gear that facilitated the Apollo missions isn\u2019t compatible with the modern rockets or NASA\u2019s goal of longer-term exploration\u2014humans have spent a total of just over three days ambling around the lunar surface. Since the inception of the Artemis project, NASA has contracted with SpaceX, currently Musk\u2019s most profitable company, to design more expansive landing equipment.<\/p>\n NASA has always relied on partnerships with private companies, but the number of unique contractors has dropped by 38 percent<\/a> between 2021 and 2024 as contracts with SpaceX ballooned. According to a Washington Post<\/em> investigation<\/a>, Musk\u2019s company has received nearly $15 billion from the agency all told, with contract values doubling at the inception of Artemis.<\/p>\n \u201cMusk can do basically whatever he wants with the rocket launches.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cNASA helped build out SpaceX,\u201d says Casey Drier, who leads the space policy team at the Planetary Society. In some ways, he sees this relationship as an exemplar of how NASA aims to interact with private companies; the partnership, he says, \u201chas significantly lowered launch costs, increased reliability, and pursued real innovation in reusability.\u201d<\/p>\n But SpaceX contracting also represents a worst-case scenario. A former NASA financial officer found that<\/a> while the company had driven down the cost of launching things into space, it wasn\u2019t passing those savings along to NASA. Even adjusting for inflation, SpaceX has been charging NASA more each year for the same services. And it can keep raising prices, because it has put competing ventures out of business. This one company \u201cnow facilitates US access to space,\u201d Drier says.<\/p>\n The technologies that allowed SpaceX to leap ahead were developed using federal funds, yet Musk owns the rights to them. \u201cMusk can do basically whatever he wants with the rocket launches to space, something previously only the domain of national superpowers,\u201d Drier says. \u201cThe government, by policy, concentrated immense power in the hands of a single individual.\u201d<\/p>\n The value of the Artemis contracts have grown over the last year as NASA, like other federal scientific agencies, finds itself in a tricky position. Because Congress rejected the president\u2019s proposed budget cuts<\/a>, NASA has the funding to carry out its missions\u2014a $24.4 billion annual budget, plus a bump of nearly $10 billion<\/a> over the next six years from the One Big Beautiful Bill. But their staff took a large hit at the hands of Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).<\/p>\n The agency lost about 20 percent of its workforce, including many senior and specialized employees<\/a> trained to support highly technical missions like getting back to the moon. This scenario \u201calmost certainly will increase reliance on contractors,\u201d Drier says\u2014though DOGE ended many NASA contracts<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n In the name of efficiency, the Trump administration also eliminated NASA\u2019s entire Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy<\/a>, whose economists analyzed and managed NASA\u2019s relationship with the space technology market. This included assessing contracts, which typically cost taxpayers more than in-house work\u2014especially when there\u2019s no competition.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t leave NASA many places to turn when the company of a billionaire who famously overpromises<\/a> doesn\u2019t deliver. An analysis from the NASA Office of the Inspector General<\/a> expressed concerns that SpaceX would not even be able to meet the already extended deadlines for the moon lander, especially as there is \u201clittle margin for error in completing the remaining work.\u201d<\/p>\n To keep the Artemis III mission on track for mid-2027, NASA is \u201cexploring options for accelerating lander development,\u201d per the IG report. So far, this has meant soliciting proposals from the only two companies with the capacity to work on such gear. One is SpaceX. The other is Jeff Bezos\u2019s rocket company, Blue Origin, which is already two years behind on its contracts for Artemis V.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n