Jim Bridenstine said NASA still does not have a lunar lander, and he warned that the Artemis architecture could eventually “come back and bite us.” He made the remarks on June 12 during an appearance on This Week in Space while discussing his new role as CEO of Quantum Space.
“Whatever it takes to build a lander soonest is what we ought to be doing as a country,” he said. Bridenstine added, “The architecture is extraordinarily complicated,” and said, “We still don't have a lander, and without a lander, you can't land on the moon. It's really that simple, and I worry that over time that's going to come back and bite us.”
June 12 on This Week in Space
Bridenstine served as NASA administrator during President Donald Trump's first term and used the podcast to compare Artemis with Apollo. He said, “They designed that thing to be as simple as you could possibly make it, and because of that they were able to land on the moon eight years after John F. Kennedy declared that we were doing it.”
He also said, “The first time SLS launched, it was rated for crew, and it was ready to go to the moon on the first launch. That's hard to do, and yet it did it.”
NASA's Artemis landers
NASA has contracted SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon as the crewed lunar landers for Artemis. NASA plans to use one of them for the first Artemis moon landing in 2028 on Artemis 4, but neither has reached orbit yet.
Bridenstine's criticism lands on the gap between that plan and the hardware now in development. NASA's Artemis missions launch Orion on SLS and need separate launches on different vehicles to get the landers off Earth, while Apollo's Saturn V launched astronauts aboard their return capsule with the moon landing vehicle stowed beneath.
Before NASA can certify either lander to fly with astronauts, both must complete qualification tests, including uncrewed lunar landing demonstrations. That leaves the agency relying on two systems still in development for a mission it has already set for 2028.
Artemis 4 deadline
The pressure now sits on which lander can clear tests first and support Artemis 4. Bridenstine put the problem plainly: NASA still needs a lander before it can land on the moon.
