Space Exploration

The Artemis program, NASA's ambitious plan to send humans back to the moon and then to Mars, remains intact after the change in presidential administrations — a rarity for the space agency. But the program appears increasingly unlikely to meet its 2024 deadline for landing astronauts on the lunar surface in preparation for a crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s. Meanwhile, other countries, most notably China, are sending robotic probes to the moon and Mars, spurring speculation that a new international space race is underway. The U.S. military increasingly views space as a future theater of war and has marshalled its resources — including the newly created U.S. Space Force — to counter Russian and Chinese development of anti-satellite weapons. The U.S. aerospace industry is also playing an increasingly important role, developing new rockets for the Artemis program and enabling NASA to end its reliance on Russia for transportation to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, several companies are competing to claim a dominant role in a fast-growing industry: space tourism.