Fake blather from NASA administrator Sean Duffy to hide more Artemis delays
Sean Duffy: “Look at the shiny object!”
During a press interview yesterday, interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy revealed almost as an aside that NASA’s mid-2027 launch for the first Artemis manned lunar landing is no longer realistic, and that NASA is now targeting a 2028 launch date instead.
Duffy managed to hide this revelation by also announcing that he is re-opening the bidding for the manned lunar lander NASA will use on that third Artemis mission. To quote Duffy:
Now, SpaceX had the contract for Artemis III. By the way, I love SpaceX and it’s an amazing company, but the problem is, they are behind. They pushed their timelines out and we are in a race against China. The president and I want to get to the moon in this president’s term. So, I’m going to open up the contract and I’m going let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin. Whatever one gets us there first to the moon, we are going to take. If SpaceX is behind and Blue Origin can do it before them, good on Blue Origin.
By the way we might have two companies that can get us back to the Moon in 2028.
The propaganda press of course is going wild about this SpaceX announcement, making believe it signifies something of importance. “SpaceX is behind! Elon Musk can’t do it! Duffy is giving Jeff Bezos the job!” And as I think Duffy intended, everyone is ignoring the fact that NASA has now admitted it won’t meet that 2027 launch target.
The irony is that Duffy’s decision to re-open bidding on that manned mission is utterly meaningless. Blue Origin’s Blue Moon manned lander is just as unlikely to meet that new 2028 launch date as SpaceX. In other words, Duffy’s announcement is just more Washington swamp blather, designed to hide the swamp’s failures. It is designed to make everyone look at a shiny object of no consequence so that we don’t notice the much bigger problems.
So what is the real story here? It is that NASA’s entire plan to get back to the Moon has been an unwieldy management disaster from the beginning, put together haphazardly simply to give the Congressionally-mandated SLS rocket and Orion capsule a mission. It requires SLS to launch the astronauts in Orion, while the lunar lander is launched separately on another rocket. Both will then rendezvous in a somewhat inconvenient lunar orbit, chosen simply because that is the orbit NASA’s improvised Lunar Gateway station will eventually occupy.
None of it has ever made any logistical sense.
Worse, there is the demand that this Rube-Goldberg mission meet a schedule, regardless of engineering realities. The desire of Duffy (and Trump) to land Americans on the Moon before Trump leaves office, whether or not Starship or Blue Moon are truly ready, is beyond stupid. It is Challenger and Columbia all over again, worsened by wild improvisation by NASA during every step of the program.
Duffy’s announcement also illustrates the overall stupidity of this “second space race” to get back to the Moon ahead of China, a one-time stunt that will do little to establish a lunar colony. We already did that in the 1960s, and got little for it. Why go down that route all over again?
There is one aspect however of Duffy’s announcement that is promising. His decision widens the competition, and asks the commercial space industry — not NASA — to provide what the government wants and needs. This is what needs to happen, more than anything else. The federal government should be encouraging the private sector to get it done, because the government can’t.
If NASA does this, we might finally see a profitable and thriving space industry colonizing the solar system. And China will be left in the dust as freedom and competition takes over.
In the meantime however I fear that more NASA astronauts will die, because our political class is more interested in having its photo ops on its political schedule then building a real American industry in space.
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Duffy didn’t go out of his way to keep people from concluding that the delay is due to SpaceX, did he?!
Elon should suggest maybe BO just use the ready to fly New Shepard… except Duffy might not realize it was a joke!
The posts on X and Threads are pretty ridiculous. Everyone is jumping on the blame SpaceX bandwagon. I feel it a moral imperative to correct the false statements as best as I can. SpaceX is late because of NASA and FAA nonsense. Of course the entire program is way behind schedule due to a lot of really bad decision making, including poor funding allocations. Every part of this program is behind schedule but now suddenly it is SpaceX’s fault? Right.
In the long run this is going to turn out mostly like the UK’s efforts to promote airships before WW2, a useless waste of time and money for technology that quickly becomes obsolete. SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy and Axiom’s spacesuit are the only parts that might be useful in the long run.
Logged on to X today, and saw that Elon woke up and chose violence this morning.
I’m not endorsing what he’s doing, but it’s hard not to appreciate that this surely reflects in no small part how the relationship between SpaceX and NASA has changed since 2008. We really are at the point now where NASA needs SpaceX more than SpaceX needs NASA, and I’m not even sure it’s close.
“SpaceX is late because of NASA and FAA nonsense.”
Eh. Yeah, that’s surely part of it, but let’s be fair – it’s not the only reason. They had very real development hiccups, especially with V2 Starship. They just blew up Starship S37 and the entire Massey’s test stand this summer! But that was to be expected.
It was just never realistic that SpaceX or anyone else was going to have any shot at delivering a lander before 2028. And I think everyone involved knew it
Another exchange on X a few hours ago, revelatory of intentions at work:
Eric Berger: “Based on a lot of reporting over the last two days one thing seems clear: Jared Isaacman was on a good path to being re-nominated to lead NASA. Sean Duffy and his chief of staff, Pete Meachum, have increased their lobbying to stop that. Trump will decide what happens next.”
Patryn: “Eric, was Duffy not on good terms with Elon up to now? Seems a risky move for him to cross this line now, unless they were never aligned from the start.”
Eric Berger: “Attitudes change. At this point his message to aerospace contractors seems to be, “I will stand up to SpaceXs dominance.””
Elon had a reply to this exchange, but I’m not sure if it’s printable here.
P.S. Great summation of the situation, Bob, as always.
Richard M: There is no doubt now that SpaceX does not need NASA any longer, and if NASA wishes to denigrate its work Musk could simply take his bat and ball and go home.
Musk of course won’t do that. He recognizes there is still great PR value in doing things for NASA.
The speculation that Duffy made this announcement to try to shore up his position as NASA administrator, feeling threatened by the return of Isaacman, is most intriguing. I suspect there is some truth to this speculation. I also think that it is possibly a mistake by Duffy.
Richard M: For some unknown reason this comment ended up in moderation. I approved it as soon as I saw it.
You however posted it again when it didn’t appear immediately. Please don’t double post. Be patient. I will get to it.
Hi Bob,
Oh, sorry, my phone kind of glitched, and it seems it just submitted it twice in rapid succession. Sorry about that!
But on your substantive point….I agree, it’s really more about the prestige and PR. Starlink this year will pull in as much revenue as NASA’s entire HSF budget; by 2027, they’ll be making as much as the entire NASA budget. And Elon knows it. Elon doesn’t need NASA any longer to go to the Moon or Mars (regulatory FUD notwithstanding).
Meanwhile SpaceX is really NASA’s only ride to space for nearly all of its needs right now. And Sean Duffy has got himself in a fight with a guy whose tweets (on the platform he owns) get 5 times as many views as any appearance Duffy can manage on Fox News.
Or host said
” and if NASA wishes to denigrate its(Spacex) work Musk could simply take his bat and ball and go home.”
And at least for the present SpaceX is like the kid that owned the bat and ball used in the pickup baseball game. if he goes home its game over until someone else can save up for a bat and ball.
Honestly Blue Origin is all bluster, at present they have launched precisely 1 New Glenn. China would be, unsurprisingly, unwilling to help, Russia has 13 launches this year vs 135 for SpaceX, and honestly, it’s quality was never great and has been headed downhill for a decade or more. Will NASA use its other Contractors? Boeing can’t get Starliner to work, ULA has nothing man rated and their Vulcan/Centaur isn’t much better off than New Glenn. Honestly you wouldn’t get me to climb into an Orion, and even then they can only crank one Artemis out every year or so (and that only until we run out or RS-25’s). This is the classic make the other guy the long pole in the tent of a scheduling issue. Except here if the other guy picks up and leaves (moon is NOT SpaceX/Elons goal at all) or gets cranky you have some serious issues.
It feels like Mr. Duffy has been fed some nonsense by internal NASA folks and he is not sharp enough to know whats up.