The most powerful rocket ever built will, if things go according to plan, blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Wednesday, taking humans further from earth than ever before and returning Nasa to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.
But in the week that US ground forces gather in the Gulf waiting for presidential orders to invade Iran, the Artemis Moon missions are another huge strategic gamble for Donald Trump.
The US President has long wanted to use space as a showcase for his Make America Great Again (Maga) project, boosting economic activity in the American heartlands, rallying his supporters around a nationalistic mission, and making billions for tech titan supporters like Elon Musk.
The symbolism of giant rockets blasting square-jawed astronauts into the heavens, accompanied by cheering, flag-waving crowds, fits with Trump’s brand as a strongman who gets big projects done.
Space race victories and Trump’s Maga vision seem made for each other – but America faces stiff competition.
“The United States is in this massive great power competition with China and space is a major dimension of that, with both trying to develop their space power because they understand that space power is now increasingly entwined with the other forms of power on earth”, Gabriel Elefteriu, senior research fellow in Space Power at the Council on Geostrategy, told The i Paper
The Artemis II mission will circumvent the Moon, and act as a test flight for a future landing, just as the Apollo 8 mission did in the 1960s paving the way for Neil Armstrong to be the first human to leave a footprint off the earth.
Unlike the 60s, the plan this time is to stay – and to make money.
“The big difference is that back in the Cold War, space exploration and space activity was a government activity, and now it’s really the government acting as the anchor customer but really with a major commercial input in terms of the main technologies,” explained Elefteriu.
The space economy is increasingly valuable, with Musk’s SpaceX preparing to launch the biggest stock market flotation of all time, which would put the value of his company at over $1.7trn (£1.3trn).
Nasa is now headed by 43-year-old billionaire and Musk ally Jared Isaacman, who has ambitious plans for the Artemis programme to land astronauts on the lunar surface by 2028 and to set up a permanent base for future exploration.
China is meanwhile developing its own systems, aiming to land a Chinese crew on the Moon by 2030.
Whoever can establish a permanent base will have access to critical rare earth materials as well as resources that could be used for future missions to Mars including water, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, silicon and carbon.
Isaacman recently placed the costs of building a permanent base at around $20bn (£15bn) over a seven-year period, built across dozens of missions.
Musk, who has previously been focused on a mission to Mars, seems to want to support Trump’s plans with a pivot to building on the Moon.
Musk wrote on his social media platform X in February: “For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years.
“The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars. SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster.”
Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander, Victor Glover, Artemis II pilot, Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Artemis II mission specialist, with the Artemis II rocket and Orion spacecraft, on Monday (Photo: Bill Ingalls / Nasa/ AFP via Getty Images)Iranian missiles using satellites
Trump has made success in space a focus for his administration since his first term. In December, he set out his vision in an executive order aiming at “ensuring American space superiority” as a contribution to “the Nation’s vital economic and security interests”.
Those security interests now have an added importance as Iranian missiles use Russian and Chinese satellites to target American and allied bases in the Gulf.
“Space power is crucial to the United States because it underpins their military might, but the current Artemis mission is being entirely overshadowed by the war with Iran,” said Dr Carly Beckerman, associate professor of international relations and co-founder of Durham University’s Space Research Centre.
“The Artemis missions could have been an incredibly important messaging tool for the Trump administration, a way to harken back to a golden age in American politics and channel some anger-based politics into a feeling of agency for the future that might have at least helped to buttress the Republican Party through several election cycles.
“But in the context of Iran and the short and long-term economic fallout from this war, the Artemis missions have lost all their sparkle,” said Beckerman.
And if the US gets bogged down in a drawn-out conflict with Iran, any positive feelings about a successful space mission could quickly drain away as the American public face the earthly costs of the war.
“American strategists push for dominance by securing the ultimate high ground of the Moon and attacking Iran should reinforce the need among Trump’s adversaries to prevent this,” said Beckerman.
“However, the Iran war is also highlighting how difficult it is to maintain and enforce that kind of dominance.”
Astronauts from the upcoming Artemis II mission arrive before Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress last month (Photo: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)A lunar scramble
Elefteriu sees the Artemis project as the opening of a major new strategic frontier by the US, which could have a positive impact for Trump and his successors by allowing America to set the terms of future exploration of the Moon.
“The race really is about who can establish a sustainable, permanent base and can then set standards around legal norms and how countries operate on the Moon.
“Being first means that you can exclude others from places on the Moon, from the best spots for landing and so on, and you can establish your own norms in terms of how the international treaties apply to the moon in practice.”
Those norms and rules would be vital in shaping a future lunar scramble for resources that could pit American billion tech moguls against the Chinese state and would include everything from liability for spacecraft crashes to mining rights to waste disposal.
For Beckerman, however, the Iran conflict is a warning for Trump and his supporters about the risk of hubris.
“If we are thinking about a permanent military Moon base in terms of pros and cons, then the costs are extremely high and uncertain, whereas, so far, the benefits are very vague. This is all being framed in terms of concepts like leadership, inspiration and rights to resources and property, which are all just vibes at this stage.
“There are problems like razor-sharp dust, temperature spikes and radiation to figure out, and we can’t even keep supply chains going on Earth at the moment, let alone from Earth to the Moon during times of conflict,” she argues.
Watching the contrasting visions of America play out this week, the gleaming Artemis rocket in Florida on one hand, and burning US bases in the Gulf on the other, allies and foes alike are struggling to make sense of what it means for Trump and his Maga project, but trust and credibility are as combustible as rocket fuel.
As Beckerman puts it: “Any of Trump’s future promises, assurances or even threats have lost credibility and must be supplanted by a single fact, that this President is willing to start wars and endanger global security and prosperity in the absence of an articulable reason.”
Trump is shooting for the Moon, but war in Iran could drag him back down to earth with a bump.
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