Time for Free Enterprise to Take the Lead
- Sean Mahoney
- Feb 26, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 15
Space Frontier Foundation Statement on The Artemis Program
Washington DC, February 26, 2025
The Space and Aeronautics subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held a hearing today concerning the state of the Artemis Program, the NASA program for returning American astronauts to the Moon. The hearing was entitled “Step by Step: The Artemis Program and NASA's Path to Human Exploration of the Moon, Mars, and Beyond”.
The Space Frontier Foundation has determined that the Artemis Program, as currently constituted, is incapable of achieving reliable access to the Moon, much less the goal of returning to the Moon before China.
However, that architecture does contain the seed of a plan that would put America back on the Moon earlier and in a way that makes going back to stay far more cost-effective and sustainable than the current plan.
The use of commercial companies for landing on the Moon combined with the new commercial heavy lift capabilities of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance strongly suggest that a robust and diversified alternative using commercial provides can be far more cost-effective, have less risk, and have more diverse capabilities than the current plan. Such a plan would ensure that the United States would continue to dominate space for generations to come.
The Foundation's considered and long-standing opinion is that free enterprise is needed to open space, and as such the SLS rocket, its ground infrastructure, and Gateway should be canceled and that the Artemis Program should be restructured around commercial heavy lift companies. As noted in the hearing today, there are calls for an off-ramp from SLS. The Foundation also finds that such a restructuring would amplify our ability to put Americans on Mars far sooner and more sustainably—not “Moon or Mars” or “Moon then Mars” but “Moon and Mars At The Same Time.”
About the Space Frontier Foundation:
The Space Frontier Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to opening the space frontier to human settlement as rapidly as possible. For more information, please visit www.spacefrontier.org.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Sean MahoneyPress@SpaceFrontier.org202-240-7009
