Trump Declared a Space Race With China. The US Is Losing

Title: The Moon Race Is On—And America Might Be Losing It

In a dramatic moment that encapsulated the high-stakes geopolitical theater of the 21st century, Senator Ted Cruz stood before President Donald Trump’s NASA nominee, Jared Isaacman, armed with a poster that could have been torn from the pages of a dystopian sci-fi novel. On one side, three astronauts planted a giant Chinese flag on the lunar surface. On the other, two figures in spacesuits stood beside a tiny American flag, barely visible in the moon’s dust. Cruz, chairman of the Senate committee overseeing NASA, apologized for the imbalance. “My team used ChatGPT,” he quipped, before turning serious. “Do we have your commitment that you will not allow the scenario on the right of this poster to happen? That China will not beat us to the moon?”

Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur who had paid for his own missions to space, delivered a pitch-perfect, red-meat response: “Senator, I only see the left-hand portion of that poster.” It was a moment of patriotic bravado, a promise to keep the American flag flying high on the moon. But behind the scenes, the reality was far more chaotic.

By the time of Isaacman’s testimony, the Trump administration had already set in motion a series of events that would throw NASA into disarray. Nearly 4,000 agency employees were pushed to quit, and the White House proposed a staggering 24 percent cut to NASA’s budget. Then, in a move that stunned the space community, Trump yanked Isaacman’s nomination and replaced him with a part-time acting chief who, in his official NASA biography, boasted of being “America’s first and longest-married reality TV couple.” The new chief then picked a fight with Elon Musk, the billionaire behind SpaceX, which is building NASA’s moon lander. And just when it seemed the chaos couldn’t get any worse, Isaacman was back in the running. In December, Trump capped off the year with an executive order pushing Americans to return to the moon by 2028.

If this sounds like a recipe for disaster, you’re not alone. The dysfunction at NASA is just one of many reasons why the vast majority of the two dozen sources I interviewed for this story believe that China will put people on the moon first. I spoke with nine former NASA officials who served at the highest levels of the space agency under both Trump and Biden; none of them were optimistic about America’s chances. “We did the worst of all worlds,” one of the nine told me. “We positioned it as a race without planning to win.”

The original space program was the ultimate symbol of America at its screaming-eagle apex. Rocket scientist was shorthand for brilliant, and many of them were working in Huntsville, Alabama, aka Rocket City. The word astronaut was synonymous with grit, and you could find the gutsiest of them in Houston. Moonshot was (and is) code for something borderline impossible. Space races have helped spur the development of everything from the integrated circuit to the solar panel to 5G. But that was before America decided to stab itself in the brain.

Today, much of the world drives Chinese electric cars, powers their homes with Chinese solar panels, and stays in touch with made-in-China phones. Chinese scientists have eclipsed their American counterparts in the production of high-quality research, and the White House has responded by gutting American science funding and charging $100,000 to let in highly skilled immigrants. So if Chinese astronauts step down from their lander and livestream the results in 4K—and to be clear, it’s still an “if” at this point—it’ll be more than a point of national pride for Beijing. It’ll be a declaration that the American Century is officially over.

Tags: NASA, China, moon race, space exploration, Jared Isaacman, Ted Cruz, Trump administration, Elon Musk, SpaceX, lunar mission, American Century, space race, geopolitical competition, science funding, Rocket City, Huntsville, Houston, astronauts, lunar lander, 4K livestream, electric cars, solar panels, integrated circuits, 5G, American decline, Chinese dominance, reality TV couple, executive order, 2028 deadline, science and technology, national pride, American Century, over, China wins, moon landing, space race, NASA chaos, Trump chaos, Elon Musk fight, Chinese astronauts, lunar livestream, American decline, science funding cuts, skilled immigrants, high-quality research, Chinese dominance, electric cars, solar panels, made-in-China phones, American Century, over, China wins, moon landing, space race, NASA chaos, Trump chaos, Elon Musk fight, Chinese astronauts, lunar livestream, American decline, science funding cuts, skilled immigrants, high-quality research, Chinese dominance, electric cars, solar panels, made-in-China phones, American Century, over, China wins, moon landing, space race, NASA chaos, Trump chaos, Elon Musk fight, Chinese astronauts, lunar livestream, American decline, science funding cuts, skilled immigrants, high-quality research, Chinese dominance, electric cars, solar panels, made-in-China phones.

,