SpaceX launched its IPO on the same day the United States sent astronauts to the Moon for the first time in 54 years. And the timing is appropriate: This is probably the last time NASA will try to send people into deep space without a big help from a company that emerged from the venture capital-backed tech scene.
The origins of NASA’s current lunar campaign trace a complicated path dating back to the second Bush administration, which began developing a massive rocket and spacecraft called Orion to return to the Moon. By 2010, the project was over budget and cut, and was combined with a new program to support private companies building new orbital rockets.
That decision led to a savings deal for the SpaceX company and a flood of venture capital into extraterrestrial technology, and to the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that now carries four Americans and one Canadian around the moon and back.
The SLS is the most powerful operational rocket in the world today. It has only flown once before, when it launched an empty Orion spacecraft on a test flight around the moon in preparation for this week’s historic mission, which will set a record for humans for furthest into the solar system.
Next time, however, the pressure will be on SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. The two companies compete to see who will get their boots on the lunar regolith.
SLS and Orion were built by legacy NASA contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin, with support from Europe’s Airbus Defense and Space. They were also expensive, late and over budget, as SpaceX flew a fleet of cheap reusable rockets and kicked off a massive cycle of investment in private space.
When NASA decided to head to the Moon again in 2019, the agency felt it had to stick with SLS and Orion.
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But one piece of the puzzle was missing: a vehicle to transport astronauts from space to the surface of the moon. NASA decided that would come from the new generation of venture capital-backed space companies. The agency also tapped a handful of private space companies to deploy robotic landers for reconnaissance and testing, including Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines.
SpaceX opted to use its Starship rocket as a lander and, in 2021, won the job. It was a controversial decision. Getting the massive vehicle to the moon will require a dozen or more launches to fill it with enough propellant for the trip. After years of waiting for the spacecraft, NASA decided to delay an attempt to land on the moon and readjust its schedule.
“This is an architecture that no NASA administrator that I know of would have selected if they had the option,” former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told Congress last year, noting that the decision had been made without a Senate-confirmed leader at the agency.
Blue Origin was added to the list in 2023 to build its own human landing system.
Now, the agency is apparently planning a competition: In 2027, NASA will test Orion’s ability to rendezvous with one or both landers in orbit, before two possible landings in 2028. That will put greater scrutiny on SpaceX’s upcoming Starship test, which could happen this month, and Blue Origin’s plans to test its lander on the moon sometime this year.
This year, there has been a major overhaul of the program under NASA’s new administrator, billionaire payments businessman Jared Isaacman, who paid SpaceX to fly two space missions and was promoted by Musk as the right candidate for administrator. After being nominated for the position by President Donald Trump, having his nomination withdrawn, and being renominated, he took office in late 2025 facing a series of difficult decisions about how to return to the moon.
In March, Isaacman scrapped plans, long seen as wasteful or politically motivated by outside observers, to build a lunar space station called Gateway and invest in costly upgrades to SLS. Now he is fully involved in the new generation of private space companies.
However, now that China is on its own disciplined path to landing one of its citizens on the moon by 2030, any delays or missteps will be viewed from a geopolitical perspective. So far, Silicon Valley has failed to beat Chinese companies in the physical realms of electric cars or robotics. SpaceX has become the company that entrepreneurs across the Pacific seek to emulate, but by heading to the Moon, Silicon Valley will have the chance to prove it can still dominate the technological frontier.
