NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman warned Friday that the United States is in a "new space race" with China, saying that the agency must recapture the urgency of the Apollo era if it hopes to return astronauts to the moon first.
China launched its first astronaut in 2003, he said, and has since built up a broad portfolio of space capabilities, including lunar missions and plans for a crewed moon landing before 2030. These rapid advances have created a competition far closer than the Cold War race that culminated in the Apollo moon landings, Isaacman said, during an Artemis update at Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida.
"Nor will NASA sit idly by and watch one of the most consequential moments of this new century pass to our overseas competitors," he said. "The appetite for tolerating and defending the status quo has reached its conclusion."
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NASA reaffirmed its summer plans for Artemis III, and for Artemis IV—the mission scheduled to return astronauts to the lunar surface—in 2028. The agency will continue to depend on Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to achieve these goals.
According to NASA officials, Artemis III will be a two-week mission involving four astronauts and a series of docking demonstrations in Earth's orbit, with SpaceX and Blue Origin developing the lunar landers. The mission will not travel to the moon but is designed to test systems and operations needed for future lunar landings.
Artemis III will require multiple launches in quick succession from Florida and give crews an opportunity to conduct docking exercises with both commercial spacecraft, NASA leaders said.
During the briefing, Artemis Program Manager Jeremy Parsons praised SpaceX's rapid development pace.
"We're seeing lots of hardware, lots of quick changes, and an absolute blistering pace of production," he said.
The agency's push comes as China works toward its publicly stated goal of landing astronauts on the moon before 2030, raising concerns among U.S. officials that America could lose momentum in a domain it once dominated.
Isaacman repeatedly invoked the Apollo era, arguing that NASA should draw lessons from when the agency progressed from Apollo 7's first crewed mission to Apollo 11's lunar landing within nine months.
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"It's a playbook this agency knows really well, the same playbook that went from Apollo 7 splashdown to Apollo 11 in just nine months," he said.
While emphasizing that NASA will not compromise safety, Isaacman said the agency is working to cut bureaucracy, speed decision-making and increase the pace of hardware development.
The broader goal, he said, extends beyond simply returning astronauts to the moon.
"This will not be a repeat of flags and footprints," Isaacman said.
He described future lunar missions as laying the groundwork for a permanent human presence beyond Earth.
"These vehicles are being designed to dramatically reduce the cost of delivering mass to orbit and to the moon, to support longer surface operations, enable more frequent astronaut missions, and transform what will begin as a small scientific outpost into something that may one day resemble a city on the lunar surface," Isaacman said.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House and SpaceX for comment.
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