In his first term, President Donald Trump set his eyes on America’s “next frontier”: the moon, Mars and beyond.
“We will ensure a future of American dominance in space,” Trump said in a May 2020 speech at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The first-term president reestablished a White House space council, issued directives intended to jump-start U.S. space policy and urged Congress to fully fund his planned Artemis program, which would return American astronauts to the moon.
Now, some of Trump’s first-term space goals are becoming second-term realities, thanks in part to the four-year gap between his two administrations that allowed time for the initiatives to take root.
Trump hosted the four astronauts from the Artemis II mission in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon, three weeks after the NASA-led crew made history by flying the farthest distance from Earth by any humans.
The president has repeatedly touted the astronauts’ lunar flyby as a symbol of American ingenuity — as well as a stepping stone. NASA has planned three more Artemis missions before Trump’s term ends, including two trips to the moon in 2028. The second of those trips is intended to begin construction on a permanent lunar base, which Trump has said will help position the United States to eventually land astronauts on Mars.
“I like space, you know,” Trump said Wednesday, flanked by the four Artemis II astronauts — pilot Victor Glover, commander Reid Wiseman, and mission specialists Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch — and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. A model of NASA’s proposed Space Reactor‑1 Freedom, a nuclear-powered spacecraft that would be used to reach Mars, sat on the Resolute Desk in front of Trump.
The president also touted his first-term creation of a U.S. Space Force, a distinct military branch focused on space operations. “It’s going to turn out to be one of our most important things,” Trump said.
Space politics have helped shape Trump’s two terms in Washington, and not just because of the president’s ambitions. Billionaire entrepreneurs focused on the space industry, such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, have increasingly jockeyed for influence with the White House and sought to win major government contracts for their rocket companies.
Musk, who spent at least $288 million to help elect Trump and other Republican candidates in 2024, was initially given wide influence over administration policies last year before a falling out with the president. One factor in that fracture was a fight over who would lead NASA. The president eventually acceded to Musk’s wishes and picked his ally Isaacman — again — after pulling Isaacman’s first nomination. Musk has since patched his relationship with Trump, and his company SpaceX is working to prove it is capable of carrying out a crewed Artemis mission to the moon.
Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, has also mended his relationship with Trump after the president repeatedly lambasted Bezos-owned companies in his first term. Since Trump’s 2024 election, Bezos has joined him for dinner at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate and at several high-profile events, including Tuesday’s state dinner with Britain’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
Amazon, one of Bezos’s companies, spent tens of millions of dollars to pay for and promote a documentary, “Melania,” about the first lady. Meanwhile, his space company, Blue Origin, has ramped up spending on lobbying since Trump’s return to office and last year retained Brian Ballard, a Trump-connected lobbyist, to advocate for the company’s interests. Blue Origin is vying with SpaceX to potentially support a crewed Artemis mission to the moon.
Other countries are also increasingly focused on growing their space programs, part of a new space race. China has targeted 2030 to land its own astronaut on the moon.
The space program is among the more popular initiatives of Trump’s second term, and Democrats have joined Republicans to praise the success of the Artemis II mission. A YouGov poll this month found that 58 percent of Americans had positive views of the mission, with just 6 percent opposed, and the remainder neutral or unsure. Three-quarters of Americans also said they had pride in the U.S. space program, according to an Ipsos poll this month.
It was inspiring to watch the Artemis II launch yesterday — @NASA’s first crewed mission around the moon since 1972. Our space program has always captured an essential part of what it means to reach beyond what we thought was possible, and I hope the four brave astronauts on this… pic.twitter.com/fgNtlRRECV
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 2, 2026
Democrats have been unhappy with the Trump administration’s broader stewardship of NASA, however, criticizing decisions that led to thousands of civilian workers leaving the agency last year, and pledging to block new plans to cut the agency’s science funding. The frustrations spilled out this week in congressional hearings with Isaacman, who was on Capitol Hill to defend the administration’s proposed budget.
“NASA was left adrift in 2025 with political leaders who actively harmed NASA’s missions and set the agency back years by creating a massive brain drain,” Rep. Grace Meng (D-New York) told Isaacman on Monday, lamenting the Trump administration’s decisions. “No one up here holds you responsible for what happened before you were confirmed … but you must clean it up.”
Isaacman said the administration’s planned budget cuts would lead to a more narrowly focused, efficient NASA. He also warned that the vision of American space dominance was far from assured, given global competition.
“What you just saw Artemis II pull off, you’re going to see the Chinese do in the not-too-distant future,” he said.
In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Isaacman and Trump said they were optimistic that American astronauts could return to the moon by 2028.
“We’re back in the business of launching moon rockets with frequency,” the NASA chief said.
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