ORLANDO, Fla. — The nation’s goal of getting back to the moon before China could be threatened if President Donald Trump follows through on his plans to sunset the rocket and spacecraft of NASA’s Artemis program, according to a series of supporters that gave Senate testimony Wednesday.

Spearheaded by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation committee held a hearing titled “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise: Why Congress and NASA Must Thwart China in the Space Race.”

“Any drastic changes in NASA’s architecture at this stage threaten United States leadership in space, delays or disruptions only serve our competitors interests. Congress has spoken clearly on this matter,” Cruz said.

Cruz has been pushing the China threat angle as the main impetus to garner bipartisan congressional support for Artemis’ Space Launch System rocket, the Orion spacecraft and the planned lunar space station Gateway.

Trump’s proposed budget for NASA’s next fiscal year called for the end of SLS and Orion after Artemis III and the elimination of Gateway altogether. The budget instead seeks to rely on commercial providers like SpaceX and Blue Origin to satisfy the Artemis program goals of a sustained lunar presence and push onto Mars.

Cruz, though, was able to corral support to insert more than $10 billion into Trump’s own Big, Beautiful Bill to fund the use of SLS and Orion through at least Artemis V as well as save Gateway. And both the Senate and House have signaled they will counter some of Trump’s NASA targets with their own budget proposals.

“It would be folly to cut short these missions after much of the hardware has already been purchased and, in some cases, delivered and with no commercial alternative readily available,” Cruz said. “I look forward to working hand in hand with the administration to ensure that those funds are utilized in full accordance with congressional intent.”

The committee hearing leaned on several witnesses, including former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, hammer home the China threat. But he already thinks the U.S. is in a bad position.

“It is highly unlikely that we will land on the moon before China,” Bridenstine said, outlining the major hurdles the remain in place to return humans for the first time since the Apollo program’s six successful trips to the surface from 1969-1972. The U.S. so far has been the only nation to send humans to the moon, but China has stated it intends to get humans to the lunar south pole before 2030.

Artemis I was an uncrewed test flight in 2022 while Artemis II, slated to launch no later than April 2026, aims to fly humans on board Orion for the first time, but only fly around the moon. The Artemis III mission, on an optimistic schedule of flying by summer 2027, is relying on a version of SpaceX’s in-development Starship to act as the human landing system and bring a crew from Orion down to the surface.

Bridenstine bemoaned the choice of Starship, which was done during a period after he left office during Trump’s first administration and before Bill Nelson was confirmed under the Biden administration.

“Look at the architecture. It is extraordinarily complex,” he said, outlining how Starship will rely on a series of untested in-space refueling to get to the moon. “This is an architecture that no NASA administrator that I’m aware of would have selected, but it was a decision that was made in the absence of a NASA administrator.”

Bridenstine is now a managing partner for the Artemis Group, but is also head of government operations for United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, both of which have a vested interest in existing Artemis hardware including the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft.

He admits he had been critical in the past of the delays and cost overruns to SLS and Orion, which through Artemis III will have cost the nation close to $100 billion in development and mission costs.

Regarding SLS, he said, “It has had its problems in the past. It has been expensive. It had it had overruns, all those things, but it’s behind us. It’s done. We need to use it.”

And as for Orion, which was saved from a George W. Bush-era Constellation program, he called it “a shiny object in this whole thing. The Orion crew capsule is not only usable today, but ultimately the cost is going down, because more and more of it is reusable every time we use the Orion crew capsule.”

“Those two elements are in good shape,” he said.

The reality is that even with a working SLS and Orion, delays in Starship could mean Artemis III slips past 2030, and Chinese will land on the south pole before the U.S.

Just what that means for the U.S. was the primary focus of other speakers during the hearing including Lt. Gen. John Shaw, the former deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, Michael Gold, the president of civil and international space for Jacksonville-based commercial space infrastructure company Redwire, and Allen Cutler, the president and CEO for the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration.

Gold, who before joining Redwire was NASA’s associate administrator for space policy and partnerships, laid out in plain language the real threat of letting China get back to the moon first

“China lands on the moon, the next day we see tremendous benefits to China geopolitically, where our allies turn to them, not only for space exploration, but for national security agreements, for trade agreements,” he said.

Already China, India and Russia are working to develop strengthening economic ties.

“If they get there first, we will see a global realignment that will impact our economy, our tax base, our ability to innovate, and our national security in terms of diplomacy and geopolitics that will affect security and many other aspects of daily lives,” Gold said.

He also noted that Gateway involves international partners, and if the lunar station is killed, those same partners may end up realigning with China in the future to accomplish their space goals.

“Over 60% of the Gateway’s costs are being borne by our international partners, representing billions that have already been spent building hardware,” he said. “Turning away from Gateway now would squander this unprecedented global investment in Artemis and force our international allies to seek partnerships with America’s geopolitical rivals.”

Cutler outlined the economic benefit of the Artemis program, which NASA has touted as involving companies in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

“Artemis II is preparing for its crew launch next year, but the work does not stop there,” he said. “There is mission hardware being built today, from Artemis III through Artemis IX. Factories are running. Hardware is being manufactured and thousands of Americans across the country are at work to make this campaign successful,” he said.

He called the program an economic engine that for every dollar invested, creates $3 back into the economy.

“Supporting Artemis to beat China creates stronger communities, a stronger industrial base and a stronger America,” he said.

Gold reiterated the danger of China dictating how other nation’s can access lunar resources.

“The moon is a large place, but the number of locations that have the combination of water, ice, sunlight and other aspects that we need are actually relatively limited, and we could lose those to the Chinese if we don’t move quickly,” he said,

Right now the U.S. has signed agreements with 56 countries under its Artemis Accords program that outline shared access to moon resources. Gold said for now China has 13 partners.

“If we’re not first, trust me, those numbers will change, and the fear China will eventually outspend us in space. It’s inevitable,” he said.

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