The U.S. is in a race with China to get to the moon, amid potential changes to the Artemis program and turmoil at NASA, according to a House hearing on Wednesday.
As Intuitive Machines' IM-2 lunar lander sat on the pad awaiting its nighttime launch, a meeting of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology's space and aeronautics subcommittee took place on Feb. 26 to discuss the next steps of the Artemis program and how it plays into efforts to get to Mars.
In the hearing, titled "Step by Step: The Artemis Program and NASA's Path to Human Exploration of the Moon, Mars, and Beyond", two longtime space policy experts, Dr. Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, and Dan Dumbacher, Adjunct Professor at Purdue University, told the hearing that getting to the moon was imperative, with China planning its own crewed landing before 2030.
"Our global competitors, primarily China and its allies, are out planning and outpacing us in their drive to become dominant in space. This is a critical national security and economic concern," said Dumbacher.
To get to the moon, both agreed that the Space Launch System (SLS) needs to play a key role, but differ on the degree.
Dumbacher stated that the number of Starship launches needed to demonstrate its capabilities means that the chances of it delivering humans to the moon by 2030 was "remote at best." Pace suggested taking a different route
"It's time to consider alternatives for going to the Earth, to the moon and back." Pace said. "Ideally, NASA should be able to buy heavy lift services to send humans to the moon. A revised Artemis campaign plan should be a high priority for the new administrator."
"I would say the immediate campaign plan, if you will, for the next several missions is going to be important to get there ahead of the Chinese and then we need to be able to think: how are we going to stay there in a way that's sustainable and affordable?"
All of this plays into a wider competition with China and global space leadership, the witnesses stated. Going to the moon would also allow the U.S. to learn things necessary for going to Mars in the future.
"For U.S. leadership to be effective, human space exploration missions cannot be 'one and done' but must be repeatable and sustainable, with continuous presence as the norm," said Pace, while Dumbacher also said the U.S. needs a sustainable lunar presence which is sustainable technically, economically, politically.
NASA was also a topic of hot discussion in the light of recent actions from the Trump administration, including the termination of probationary employees which was halted at the eleventh hour, and confusion and turmoil after a "what did you do last week" email to federal workers.
Amid the apparent race with China, there was uncertainty over the direction of NASA and the future of some of its employees.
"The chaos, the confusion, the whiplash, intimidation and bullying of the workforce is agency and government wide," Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren from California said. "Every day, NASA employees are worried that they or their colleagues are going to be arbitrarily fired."
The effects were worrying, Dumbacher said. "Over the weekend, I had the chance to talk with former students, NASA employees, that are scared … And believe me, they are some of the smartest people.
"I am more than happy to turn over the future to them, and they they are concerned, and they see that, and they are actually questioning, what are they going to do for their careers, and looking at other opportunities, which I think is terribly sad because of the national imperative that we have and the global competition that we are engaged in," Dumbacher said.
At the same time, representatives raised issues of bureaucracy and procurement issues standing in the way of utilizing private sector innovation and resulting in increased costs. Reducing regulatory burdens and encouraging a culture of calculated risk-taking were proposed solutions.
NASA did not provide a witness nor testimony for the hearing, despite being invited to do so.
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