{"id":43516,"date":"2025-12-20T00:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T16:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/trump-commits-to-moon-landing-by-2028-followed-by-a-lunar-outpost-two-years-later\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T00:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T16:49:11","slug":"trump-commits-to-moon-landing-by-2028-followed-by-a-lunar-outpost-two-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/trump-commits-to-moon-landing-by-2028-followed-by-a-lunar-outpost-two-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump commits to Moon landing by 2028, followed by a lunar outpost two years later"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of hours after a judge formally swore in private astronaut Jared Isaacman as the next administrator of NASA on Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order outlining his space policy objectives for the next three years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"\">The executive order, titled \u201cEnsuring American Space Superiority,\u201d states that the country must \u201cpursue a space policy that will extend the reach of human discovery, secure the nation\u2019s vital economic and security interests, unleash commercial development, and lay the foundation for a new space age.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>White House sets priorities<\/h2>\n<p>There is nothing Earth-shattering in the new executive order, as much of it builds on previously announced policies that span multiple administrations. There are some notable points in the document that clearly reflect the White House\u2019s priorities, though, and Isaacman\u2019s leadership of NASA.<\/p>\n<p>They include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>2028 lunar landing<\/strong>: Trump commits to returning Americans to the Moon by 2028 through the Artemis Program. Isaacman is to submit a plan within 90 days for achieving this and other policy objectives and mitigating any problems. Presumably, this will include ideas to expedite the development of a Human Landing System and lunar surface spacesuits.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A lunar outpost<\/strong>: Establish \u201cinitial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030 to ensure a sustained American presence in space and enable the next steps in Mars exploration.\u201d The use of \u201coutpost\u201d could mean surface activities or the Lunar Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and it seems deliberately ambiguous.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nuclear reactors on the Moon<\/strong>: Seeks to deploy nuclear reactors on the Moon and in orbit, including a lunar surface reactor ready for launch by 2030. With this item, it does seem like the administration is committed to some sort of lunar surface activities in the long term.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Private launch<\/strong>: \u201cEnhance sustainability and cost-effectiveness of launch and exploration architectures, including enabling commercial launch services and prioritizing lunar exploration.\u201d It\u2019s good to see the administration acknowledge that privately developed rockets are the future.<\/li>\n<li><strong>End of ISS<\/strong>: \u201cSpurring private sector initiative and a commercial pathway to replace the International Space Station by 2030.\u201d This is a restatement of NASA\u2019s goal to end the space station in 2030 and have one or more commercial stations ready to go as a follow-up. That\u2019s easier said than done.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A focus on leaner procurement<\/strong>: \u201cUse of existing authorities to improve efficiency and expedite space acquisitions, including a first preference for commercial solutions and a general preference for Other Transactions Authority or Space Act Agreements, customary commercial terms, or any other pathways to promote effective or streamlined acquisitions.\u201d Cost-plus contracts are not mentioned.<\/li>\n<li><strong>End the National Space Council<\/strong>: \u201cThis order supersedes Executive Order 14056 of December 1, 2021 (The National Space Council), which is hereby revoked.\u201d Trump brought back the Space Council during his first term, but perhaps Vice President JD Vance is not interested in this area of policy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>,<\/p>\n<p>Strikingly, there is no mention of a concrete plan to send humans to Mars in this document. There are just two references to the red planet, both of which talk about sending humans there as a far-off goal. One source recently told Ars that as soon as Trump learned there was no way humans could land on Mars during his second term, he was no longer interested in that initiative.<\/p>\n<h2>OMB in the picture<\/h2>\n<p>Also absent from this document is much reference to space science, with only a mention of \u201coptimizing space research-and-development investments to achieve my Administration\u2019s near-term space objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The architect of the Trump Administration\u2019s proposed deep cuts in space science (which Congress has largely forestalled) was Russ Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget. It\u2019s probably not a great indicator for science missions that Isaacman is directed to coordinate with Vought\u2019s office to achieve policy objectives in the executive order.<\/p>\n<p>All told, the policies Trump signed are generally forward-looking, seeking to modernize NASA\u2019s exploration efforts. Isaacman will face many challenges, including landing humans on the Moon by 2028 and working with industry to develop an on-time successor to the International Space Station. Whether and how he meets these challenges will be an intriguing storyline in the coming months and years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of hours after a judge formally swore in private astronaut Jared Isaacman as the next administrator of NASA on Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order outlining his space policy objectives for the next three years. The executive order, titled \u201cEnsuring American Space Superiority,\u201d states that the country must \u201cpursue a space [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}