Artemis 2 is NASA’s last mission to the moon without Silicon Valley

SpaceX launched its initial public offering 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 will likely be the last time NASA will attempt to send people into deep space without significant help from a company that has fallen out of the venture-backed technology scene.

NASA’s current lunar campaign has its origins in a complex 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, scaled back, and paired with a new program to support private companies in building new orbital rockets.

That decision led to a company rescue contract with SpaceX and a venture capital rush into outer space technology, and to the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that now carries four Americans and one Canadian back and forth around the moon.

The SLS is the most powerful operational rocket in the world today. It has flown only 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 the furthest distance humans have traveled in the solar system.

Next time, however, the pressure will be on SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. The two companies are competing to see who will put shoes on the lunar surface.

SLS and Orion were built by NASA’s traditional contractors, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, with support from Airbus Defense and Space in Europe. It was also expensive, late and over budget, while SpaceX was launching a fleet of cheap, reusable rockets and launching 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 the SLS and Orion rovers.

But there was a missing piece of the puzzle: a vehicle to transport astronauts from space to the surface of the moon. NASA decided that it would come from the new generation of venture-backed space companies. The agency has also turned to a few private space companies to deploy robotic landers for reconnaissance and testing, including Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines.

SpaceX tried to use its Starship rocket as a lander, and won the mission in 2021. It was a controversial decision. Getting the massive vehicle to the moon will require a dozen or more launches to fill it with enough fuel for the journey. After years of waiting for the spacecraft, NASA chose to postpone the moon landing attempt and reorganize its program.

“This is an architecture that no NASA official with the knowledge would have chosen if he had the choice,” former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told Congress last year, noting that the decision was made without a Senate-confirmed leader at the agency.

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

Now, the agency appears to be planning a break: In 2027, NASA will test Orion’s ability to rendezvous with one or both of them in orbit, before two potential landings in 2028. That will put more scrutiny on SpaceX’s next spacecraft test, which could happen this month, and Blue Origin’s plans to test its lander on the moon sometime this year.

This year, the program was overhauled under NASA’s new administrator, billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman, who has paid for SpaceX to fly two space missions and has been promoted by Musk as the right candidate for the administrator’s job. After being nominated for the position by President Donald Trump, withdrawing his nomination and renominating him, he entered office in late 2025 facing a series of difficult choices about how to return to the Moon.

In March, Isaacman canceled plans, long viewed by outside observers as a waste of time or politically motivated, to build a space station on the moon called Gateway, and invest in expensive upgrades to the SLS system. He is now involved in the new generation of private space companies.

But with China remaining on track to send one of its citizens to the moon by 2030, any delay or misstep will be viewed in a geopolitical light. Silicon Valley has so far failed to beat Chinese companies in the physical areas 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 a chance to show that it can still own the frontiers of technology.