Artemis II is NASA’s last lunar mission without Silicon Valley

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 right. This is likely the last time NASA will attempt to send people into deep space without significant help from companies emerging from the venture-backed technology scene.

NASA’s current lunar exploration efforts have a complex history dating back to the second Bush administration, when NASA began developing a giant rocket and spacecraft called Orion to return to the moon. By 2010, the project was cut because it was over budget and combined with a new program to help private companies build new orbital rockets.

The decision led to a company-saving deal with SpaceX, a flood of venture capital into extraterrestrial technology, and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is now carrying three Americans and a Canadian back from orbiting the moon.

SLS is currently the most powerful operational rocket in the world. 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 to set a record for the furthest humans have traveled into the solar system.

But the pressure will likely be on SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin next time. The two companies are competing to see who can put boots on the moon’s regolith.

SLS and Orion were built by legacy NASA contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin with support from Europe’s Airbus Defense and Space. And while SpaceX was flying a fleet of cheap, reusable rockets and starting a major cycle of investment in civilian space, they were expensive, delayed and over budget.

When NASA decided to return to the moon in 2019, it felt it needed to continue using SLS and Orion.

But there was a missing piece to the puzzle. It is a vehicle that transports astronauts from space to the lunar surface. NASA decided that it would come from a new generation of venture-backed space companies. The agency has also commissioned several private space companies, including Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines, to deploy robotic landers for reconnaissance and testing purposes.

SpaceX made a bid to use its Starship rocket as a lander and won the job in 2021. It was a controversial decision. Getting this massive spacecraft to the moon will require more than a dozen launches to fill it with the propellant needed for the journey. After years of waiting for the spacecraft to arrive, NASA chose to postpone its moon landing attempt and recalibrate its plans.

“This is an architecture that no NASA administrator I know would have chosen if they had the choice,” former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told Congress last year, noting that the decision was made without Senate-confirmed NASA leadership.

Blue Origin was added to the roster in 2023 to build its own human landing system.

Now, NASA is apparently planning a bake-off. NASA plans to test Orion’s ability to rendezvous with one or both landers in orbit in 2027, ahead of a possible double landing in 2028. This will bring even more scrutiny to SpaceX’s next Starship test, which could take place this month, and Blue Origin’s plans to test a lander on the moon later this year.

This year, the program underwent a major overhaul under NASA’s new administrator, billionaire payments entrepreneur Jared Isaacman. Mr. Isaacman paid SpaceX to fly two space missions and was promoted by Mr. Musk as a suitable candidate for management. After being nominated, revoked, and renominated for the job by President Donald Trump, he took office in late 2025 and faced a series of difficult choices about how to return to the moon.

In March, Mr. Isaacman withdrew plans to build a lunar space station called Gateway and invest in expensive upgrades to the SLS, long seen by outside observers as wasteful or politically motivated. Currently, he is fully committed to a new generation of private space companies.

However, China is on its own disciplined path to landing one of its citizens on the moon by 2030, and any delays or failures will be seen from a geopolitical perspective. Silicon Valley has so far been unable to beat Chinese companies in physical areas such as electric vehicles and robotics. SpaceX has become a company that entrepreneurs across the Pacific are trying to emulate, but Silicon Valley will have a chance to show it can still own the technological frontier by aiming for the moon.