After 50 Years, Astronauts Circle the Moon Again — But the Hardest Part Is Still Ahead

On April 10, 2026, at 8:07 p.m. ET, NASA's Orion spacecraft dropped into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, ending a ten-day mission that took four astronauts farther from Earth than any humans have ever traveled [1]. Mission Control called it "a perfect bullseye splashdown" [2]. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen were extracted within two hours and flown to the USS Murtha [1].

Artemis II was, by any measure, a technical triumph. The crew reached 252,756 miles from Earth, surpassing the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970 by more than 4,000 miles [3]. It was the first crewed flight beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972 — a gap of more than 53 years [1].

But Artemis II did not land on the Moon. It flew around it. The mission that was supposed to lay the groundwork for a lunar surface return instead underscored how much work — and how many billions of dollars — remain before boots touch lunar soil again. And the political, financial, and technical questions surrounding the Artemis program are, if anything, sharper now than before launch.

The Price Tag: $93 Billion and Counting

By the time Artemis II lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on April 1, NASA had spent more than $55 billion on the Space Launch System (SLS), Orion spacecraft, and Exploration Ground Systems programs combined [4]. A 2021 audit from NASA's Office of Inspector General estimated the total Artemis program cost — including the Human Landing System, spacesuits, and Gateway — at approximately $93 billion through fiscal year 2025 [4]. Analysts warn the overall program could exceed $100 billion as additional missions proceed [4].

Source: NASA OIG / GAO Reports

Data as of Apr 1, 2026CSV

Three of the five core Artemis programs have accrued a combined $6.8 billion in cost overruns: the SLS rocket ($2.7 billion over), the Orion spacecraft ($3.2 billion over), and Exploration Ground Systems ($887 million over), according to the Government Accountability Office [4]. A 2023 GAO report noted that senior NASA officials had themselves acknowledged the SLS was "unaffordable at current cost levels" [4].

For comparison, the entire Apollo program cost roughly $25.8 billion in 1973 dollars, or approximately $309 billion adjusted to 2025 dollars [5]. Apollo flew 17 missions, including six successful Moon landings. Artemis has flown two missions — one uncrewed test and one crewed flyby — without a landing.

NASA's own Inspector General calculated the operating cost of a single SLS/Orion Artemis mission at roughly $4.1 billion [6]. SpaceX's Starship, which NASA has selected as the Artemis lunar lander, is estimated to cost around $100 million per launch — roughly 2.5% of an SLS launch [6][7].

Source: NASA OIG / SpaceX estimates

Data as of Apr 1, 2026CSV

The Crew: Historic Firsts, Shifting Messaging

The Artemis II crew marked several milestones. Victor Glover became the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit. Christina Koch became the first woman to do so. Jeremy Hansen became the first non-U.S. citizen to fly to the vicinity of the Moon. Wiseman, at 49, was the oldest person to travel this far from Earth [8].

All four are military test pilots or engineers with prior spaceflight experience, except Hansen, who made his spaceflight debut on Artemis II [8]. Their selection reflected broader shifts in NASA's astronaut corps: since inception, NASA has selected 360 astronaut candidates, of whom just 61 (about 17%) have been women and roughly 9% have been people of color [9]. By the 2010s, however, women made up 50% of new astronaut classes, and people of color represented 24% of active astronauts [9].

An NPR report noted that NASA had once prominently touted the diversity of the Artemis II crew in its communications, but under the current administration, that messaging was significantly scaled back [10]. The crew's qualifications and achievements were unchanged; the framing around them shifted.

Who Gets Credit? A Three-Administration Ledger

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told Fox News Digital: "I want to be incredibly clear, we would not be at this moment right now with Artemis II if it wasn't for President Trump" [11]. Isaacman explained that on his first day in Trump's second term, the president issued a national space policy mandating lunar missions "with frequency" and construction of a moon base [11]. Trump himself credited Isaacman for the decision to keep NASA, saying, "I had very little hesitation" [11].

The full record is more complicated. The hardware that flew on Artemis II was authorized and funded across three administrations:

Obama administration (2010): President Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, which directed the development of both the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft — the actual vehicles that carried the Artemis II crew [12]. The Obama White House did not prioritize a return to the Moon, instead focusing on Mars as a long-term goal, but it created the physical hardware pipeline [12].

Trump first term (2017): President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1 on December 11, 2017, redirecting NASA toward a crewed lunar return and creating what would become the Artemis program [12]. The White House requested a 12% funding increase for Artemis in its fiscal year 2021 budget, including $3.7 billion for the Human Landing System — though the House Appropriations Committee approved only $700 million of that request [12].

Biden administration (2021–2025): The Biden White House endorsed Artemis in February 2021 and maintained program funding [12]. In April 2021, NASA contracted SpaceX to develop the Starship Human Landing System [12]. Acting Administrator Steve Jurczyk acknowledged that the original 2024 lunar landing target was "no longer a realistic target" [12].

The hardware, the mission architecture, and the funding all span more than 15 years of bipartisan decisions. Assigning singular credit to any one administration does not reflect the engineering and appropriations history.

The Architecture Debate: Is SLS the Wrong Rocket?

The SLS is the most powerful rocket ever flown, generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust at launch. It is also expendable — after each flight, the core stage falls into the ocean, never to be recovered [7]. This is the fundamental criticism leveled by aerospace analysts and fiscal watchdogs.

The Center for Growth and Opportunity called the SLS "an irredeemable mistake," arguing that its high cost and expendable design "limit its potential impact on space exploration and maximize its negative effect on NASA's budget" [7]. The Reason Foundation argued that NASA should consider transitioning future missions to SpaceX's Starship, which is designed for full reusability [13].

NASA has defended the SLS as the only rocket currently capable of sending Orion and its crew to lunar orbit in a single launch, without the complex orbital refueling that Starship requires. Supporters also point to the program's proven flight record — Artemis I (uncrewed) in 2022 and Artemis II in 2026 both performed as designed.

The political dimension is harder to disentangle from the technical one. According to NASA, the SLS prime contractors — Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Jacobs — maintain more than 3,800 suppliers across all 50 states and Puerto Rico [14]. A 2019 economic impact report estimated these programs generated approximately $14 billion in total economic output and supported more than 69,000 jobs nationwide [14]. The Planetary Society has described this geographic spread as a deliberate consequence of the U.S. political system's incentive structure: annual congressional appropriations and district-level representation create "a strong parochial incentive to drive federal funds into specific geographical locales" [14].

This jobs footprint is a key reason the SLS has survived repeated GAO warnings. Nearly every congressional district has some economic stake in the program's continuation.

What Comes Next: Artemis III and the Shifting Goalposts

When NASA announced the Artemis program in 2019, the goal was to land astronauts on the lunar surface by 2024. That target has slipped repeatedly:

• 2019: Lunar landing targeted for 2024
• 2021: Landing acknowledged as unlikely before 2025
• 2024: Landing pushed to "no earlier than September 2026"
• January 2026: Landing delayed to no earlier than 2028
• February 2026: Artemis III restructured — it will no longer attempt a landing at all [15]

On February 27, 2026, Administrator Isaacman announced that Artemis III, now targeted for mid-2027, would conduct rendezvous and docking tests with SpaceX's Starship HLS and potentially Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander in Earth orbit [15]. The first crewed lunar landing has been redesignated as Artemis IV, tentatively targeted for 2028 [15].

The restructuring reflects challenges with multiple components: SpaceX's Starship development timeline, the Orion spacecraft's integration requirements, and the complexity of coordinating commercial lunar landers [15]. CNN reported that NASA "abruptly" added the new mission step as the space race with China intensified [16].

The China Factor

China's lunar program is the most frequently cited strategic rationale for Artemis. A spokesman for China's crewed space program said the country was "on track" to launch its crewed lunar mission by 2030, using a new crew vehicle called Mengzhou and a landing system called Lanyue [17]. A Nature analysis noted that China "might beat the United States" to the lunar surface if Artemis slips further [17].

Independent assessments present a mixed picture. China has already demonstrated its Lanyue crewed lunar lander in simulated moon gravity conditions — a propulsive lunar landing and launch test that the U.S. is still working to bring online through commercial partners [17]. RAND assessed that China's biggest hurdle will be proving "an entirely new lunar mission architecture within the next four years" with hardware that must work reliably on first use [18].

If NASA's Artemis IV lands in 2028 as currently planned, it would precede China's 2030 target by roughly two years. But given Artemis's track record of schedule slips — the landing has moved from 2024 to 2028 in just five years — that margin is thin. Scientific American noted that China "could still win the new moon race" through a combination of consistent execution and further Artemis delays [19].

Budget Pressures and Program Durability

The Artemis program faces fiscal headwinds that could determine its survival independent of technical success. The White House's fiscal year 2027 budget proposal would cut NASA's budget by 23%, from $24.4 billion to $18.8 billion — a $5.6 billion reduction [20]. Science programs would absorb a 47% cut, with more than 40 missions terminated [20]. Isaacman defended the proposal, saying the agency had sufficient funding for its "top exploration priorities" despite the cuts [20].

The structural vulnerability is clear: every Starship delay is simultaneously an Artemis landing delay, because the two programs' timelines are now locked together [21]. SpaceX's engineering setbacks become NASA's political liabilities. And if the Starship HLS fails its uncrewed demonstration, there is no credible backup lander capable of a lunar landing before 2029 — Blue Origin's Blue Moon is years behind schedule [21].

One analysis identified a paradox in Artemis's political economy: the only argument keeping the program reliably funded is strategic competition with China [21]. If China demonstrates credible Moon capability by 2028–2030, congressional appropriations for NASA are likely to increase regardless of cost-efficiency arguments. But if Artemis slips enough that the "race" is perceived as already lost, the political coalition supporting the program could fracture.

What Artemis II Actually Proved

Strip away the politics and the budgetary debates, and Artemis II demonstrated something concrete: the Orion spacecraft can carry humans safely to the Moon and back. The heat shield survived reentry at 25,000 miles per hour. The life support systems sustained four astronauts for ten days. The service module, built by the European Space Agency, performed its trans-lunar injection burn and trajectory correction maneuvers without incident [1].

Victor Glover told reporters that watching the sun disappear behind the Moon in a solar eclipse was the mission highlight, describing it as something that simulations could never fully capture: "It just blew us all away" [2].

These are real engineering achievements. They are also prerequisites, not endpoints. The question now is whether the political will and the budget can sustain a program that has spent $93 billion without putting anyone on the lunar surface — and whether the architecture chosen to get there is the right one for a sustainable, long-term presence on the Moon.

The next answer comes with Artemis III in 2027, which will test whether Starship can dock with Orion in orbit. The answer after that comes with Artemis IV in 2028, when — if all goes according to the current plan — astronauts will attempt to land. Given the program's history, the current plan should be treated as a best-case scenario.