NASA seeks competition for moon contract

After SpaceX delays, the agency fears the U.S. could fall behind China in lunar return.

- By ALLYSON VERSPRILLE AND LOREN GRUSH

VISITORS look on as a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA wants companies to compete with SpaceX over a contract it holds to put astronauts on the moon, afresh sign of blowback over delays with Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft.

“I’m in the process of opening that contract up,” acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in a Fox News interview Monday. “We're going to have a space race in regard to American companies competing to see who can actually get us back to the moon first.”

Introducing other space companies this late in the agency’s signature human space exploration program signals mounting concerns in the Trump administration over the U.S. falling behind China in the drive to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than half a century.