President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, has ordered NASA to build a nuclear reactor on the moon, just weeks after being named interim head of the space agency.
Duffy’s appointment as NASA’s chief administrator came after Elon Musk’s pick for the post, billionaire Jared Isaacman, was abruptly jettisoned by the administration following the SpaceX CEO’s public falling-out with the president.
Yet despite facing questions over his ability to effectively perform two high-profile jobs, the former Real World and Road Rules star has signaled his intent to play a major role in policymaking decisions at NASA, ordering the agency to have a working lunar reactor ready to go by 2030.
“It is about winning the second space race,” a senior NASA official told Politico, which noted that Russia and China also have plans in place to build reactors on the moon.
“The first country to do so could potentially declare a keep-out zone which would significantly inhibit the United States from establishing a planned Artemis presence if not there first,” Duffy told NASA in a directive.
The Artemis campaign is part of a long-term mission by NASA to establish an enduring manned presence on the moon, and follows a promise made by Trump during his second inaugural address to send astronauts “to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”
Space travel is to date one of the few science programs to receive a boost in funding by the current administration, despite the current budget slashing NASA’s funding and staffing levels to its lowest point since 1961.
Despite predating Duffy’s appointment as the agency’s acting administrator, the mass layoffs follow similar cuts at the Federal Aviation Administration, where layoffs came amid a major safety crisis at airports across the country and a dramatic increase in plane crashes.
Over 2,000 staff are set to depart NASA over the coming months as part of a broader plan to trim the federal workforce, raising questions about where the administration will source the manpower and technical expertise needed to build and launch a nuclear reactor into space in under five years.
“You’re losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, told Politico. “What’s the strategy and what do we hope to achieve here?”
A departing NASA staffer also told the publication the large number of people leaving would lead to a significant “experience drain,” with the severe budget cuts and lack of a permanent administrator leading to a drop in the agency’s efficiency. “Things just sound like it’s going to get worse,” the staffer added.
Ken Wright, a former NASA technical specialist, told the Daily Beast in May the Trump administration had a problem with the non-partisan data provided by his team. “Our office provided data-driven analysis not based on politics, and this new administration doesn’t feel they need that kind of information or anything they disagree with.”
Although Duffy received bipartisan support for his appointment to the role, questions have been raised about his ability to carry out the two jobs simultaneously. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, said it would be reasonable for Duffy to serve as NASA administrator or as transportation secretary, but not both.
“How does he figure out what the priority is? Is it the FAA, which has all kinds of problems, or NASA, which has all kinds of problems?” the senator said following Duffy’s appointment.
Meanwhile, remaining staffers are already preparing for the worst. “I anticipate the time will come when they order me to compromise my scientific integrity,” a high-ranking NASA scientist told the Daily Beast. “[That’s] a line I will not cross.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to NASA for further comment,
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