“The US Senate empowers NASA to fully engage in lunar space race”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/the-us-senate-empowers-nasa-to-fully-engage-in-lunar-space-race/
“The US Senate empowers NASA to fully engage in lunar space race”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/the-us-senate-empowers-nasa-to-fully-engage-in-lunar-space-race/
24 Comments
>Major changes to Artemis approved
>With the revised legislation, Cruz and the Senate committee have empowered Isaacman and NASA to make significant changes to the Artemis Program. The revised plan for the space agency will likely lead to more launches and a much greater emphasis on the lunar surface.
>Among the key Artemis changes in the reauthorization legislation:
>It notes the Space Launch System rocket “has not met” its intended flight rate and that the Exploration Upper Stage is “behind schedule and over budget.” It allows Isaacman to identify alternatives for a new upper stage and gives him a green light to “standardize” the SLS rocket to fly it more often. This effectively cancels future upgrades, as Isaacman sought.
>The legislation does not mention the Lunar Gateway. Notably, a version of this legislation authored just last week said a lunar orbiting Gateway was “critical” for future deep space exploration in section 206. Now that language is gone, replaced by a request for Isaacman to brief Congress on plans for a “lunar outpost” in 60 days.
>Later in the legislation, on page 34, it states, “The Administrator may repurpose, reprogram, reconfigure, or reassign existing programs, platforms, modules, or hardware originally developed for other programs.” Essentially, this allows Isaacman to use elements of the Lunar Gateway and a second mobile launch tower for other purposes.
>The legislation contains a lot of other notable elements. For example, a provision championed by former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine to cap the space agency’s ability to procure commercial launch services [was stripped out](https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/former-nasa-chief-turned-ula-lobbyist-seeks-law-to-limit-spacex-funding/). And the bill also extends the lifetime of the International Space Station until 2032 to give commercial space station providers more time to bring their private facilities online.
>But the big picture here is that the US Senate has put out one of its most important pieces of spaceflight legislation in decades: Senators have instructed Isaacman to go fly the Artemis program with all due speed, to do so as he deems best, and to focus on building a Moon base rather than a space station in lunar orbit.
Space race with who. Why are we doing another lunar space race.
This time, with no budget!
We went from gutting nasa to an endless budget? Cool!
This is meaningless. These programs take years, if not decades. There will be a new administration in 3 years, at which point the budget, and Artemis program, will be cut back again.
With what budget? Bake sales?
But does the Senate *fund* NASA to do this…?
If there were truly no budget they’d keep EUS and investigate other upper stage options alongside if. This will just cripple large enhancements and we’ll start the cycle over again in a few years.
It’s funny because this sub is full of endless complaining (can even see it in the thread) of repurposing old technology leading to a diminished product. Yet lots of praise to go around for this.
Good thing they just fired all those people
Overly platudinous headline
A smart person who wins the race doesn’t say “wanna go again” unless they really want to lose.
A smart person who wins a race doesn’t say “wanna go again” unless they really want to lose.
During Apollo the NASA budget was around 4% of the federal budget. Nowadays it’s 0.4%. How does the “US Senate” expects NASA to do anything with no money?
Okay, lets be real here for a second.
Yes, China could beat the US in sending humans back to the moon, but they absolutely do not have the heavy lift capabilities to establish a permanent base on the Moon. Long March 10 isn’t finished, but it will be comparable to Falcon Heavy in terms of its payload capacity, and we aren’t even considering Falcon Heavy for lunar insertions.
We need to have a space program that is insulated from congressional whims and changing administrations. When a mission takes decades to plan, having a different administrative vision for the agency every 4 years is poison to all missions.
Obligatory https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXMasterrace/comments/7wef6k/the_senate_launch_system/
For those who said Isaacman’s announcement was only worth the paper it was written on, that the Senate would once again step in to manage the SLS program, here’s your answer. Can the Senate as a whole remove this provision? Yes. Is it likely? Very doubtful. When an item is handled this quickly in committee it indicates this is a done deal. IMHO a lot of behind the scenes work (in the House and Senate) by the White House and Isaacman was put in before this week. One very large thing has changed to make this possible – the race with China. The WH and Congress urgently want to win this race, an urgency that outweighs the traditional priorities of jobs in districts.
How much is Ted Cruz putting his weight behind this? He included Berger’s article in [a tweet](https://x.com/SenTedCruz/status/2029302303161794678).
Another note: This is a big deal to us but the “NASA Authorization Act of 2026” is one item in an enormous budgetary process. Most Senators and Representatives will give it about 90 seconds of thought and follow the bipartisan recommendation of the Committee.
Von Braun spinning in his grave probably, he had to spend a lot of his time scheming and begging for money even back then. Can’t imagine what happens now.
This space race with China is much more consequential and more challenging than the one with the Soviet Union. Decades ago the launch cost was so high that no one could sustain a moon base practically, and the “space race” was more for prestige.
Now we are racing to settle on the moon and permanently occupy the best locations for water, solar farms and minerals. It is about the first-mover advantage of using the moon as the stepping stones for space commercialization and settlements. The compounding advantages are huge and will benefit us for centuries to come.
China with 4 times the population than the US has much stronger economic support (per purchasing power) and no. of engineers than the US. NASA really needs as much help as it can get especially in funding in order to have the chance to win this now-or-never race.
Feels like the Netflix show Space Force is coming true.
You need to give nasa a bigger budget then…
“Space race” with who? We would all love to transit the cosmos and explore the unknown. This seems like yet another big swing to try and distract from the various evils at our doorstep
“You can get into space if you just speak to the manager!”
Wow! Reduced budgets, reduced staff, increased political interference.
This is going to be a slam dunk!
Watch out China! Our leaders know what they are doing!
This is straight out of the space force show