A political storm has erupted between SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy over the future of the American space agency and the Moon mission contract.
The high-stakes brawl centers on two main issues:
1. The Artemis Contract Threat
- Duffy’s Move: Duffy, who is also the Transportation Secretary, publicly suggested he would reopen SpaceX’s $2.9 billion lunar lander contract (for the Artemis Moon mission), inviting competitors like Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to bid.
- The Justification: Duffy claimed SpaceX was “falling behind” on its Starship development, risking delays to the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the Trump term and potentially losing the space race to China.
- Musk’s Fury: Musk fired back on X, mocking Duffy as “Sean Dummy” and accusing him of incompetence. He argued that turning NASA into a political branch would “cripple space innovation.”
2. The Fight for NASA’s Independence
- The Proposal: The feud comes amid speculation that the Trump administration is considering a structural change: folding NASA into the Department of Transportation (DOT) to “streamline oversight.”
- Musk’s Warning: Musk denounced the restructuring as a “backdoor plan to destroy the agency’s independence” and a catastrophic step that would turn the agency into a political bureaucracy.
- Wider Criticism: Scientists and lawmakers share the concern, arguing that dismantling NASA’s independent structure could shift its priorities away from long-term exploration and research.
The public spat reflects a deeper tension over who will control and direct the next era of human spaceflight: private enterprise led by visionary billionaires or federal bureaucracy driven by political goals. For now, the timeline for the next Moon landing is caught in the crossfire.
