NASA wants companies to compete with SpaceX over a contract it holds to put astronauts on the moon, a fresh 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 on 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 inside President Donald Trump’s administration over the US falling behind China in the drive to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than half a century.

“I love SpaceX. It’s an amazing company,” Duffy told CNBC. “T

See Full Page