WASHINGTON \u2014 SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk hurled insults at NASA\u2019s acting administrator a day after complaints that the company was behind schedule on its Artemis lunar lander.<\/p>\n
In a series of social media posts Oct. 21, Musk questioned the qualifications and intelligence of Sean Duffy, who also serves as secretary of transportation.<\/p>\n
\u201cSean Dummy is trying to kill NASA!\u201d Musk wrote in one post<\/a> responding to reports that Duffy was interested in folding the space agency into the Department of Transportation in some way.<\/p>\n That was one of Musk\u2019s milder comments. In another post, he shared a poll<\/a> asking, \u201cShould someone whose biggest claim to fame is climbing trees be running America\u2019s space program?\u201d \u2014 a reference to Duffy\u2019s early career as a lumberjack.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s attacks came a day after Duffy, in television interviews, said he planned to \u201copen up\u201d SpaceX\u2019s existing Human Landing System contract for the Artemis 3 mission<\/a>, citing delays in the company\u2019s development of its Starship lunar lander.<\/p>\n \u201cI love SpaceX, it\u2019s an amazing company. The problem is they\u2019re behind,\u201d Duffy said in an interview on CNBC. \u201cSo, I\u2019m going to open up the contract. I\u2019m going to let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin, and again, whatever one can get us there first, to the moon, we\u2019re going to take.\u201d<\/p>\n Later that day, Musk appeared unfazed by the potential competition. \u201cSpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry,\u201d he posted<\/a>, adding, \u201cStarship will end up doing the whole moon mission.\u201d<\/p>\n Duffy did not respond publicly to Musk\u2019s personal attacks but did reply to the earlier post about competition. \u201cLove the passion. The race to the Moon is ON,\u201d he posted<\/a> Oct. 21. \u201cGreat companies shouldn\u2019t be afraid of a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n The exchanges took place amid debates about who should lead NASA in the current administration. Jared Isaacman, who was nominated to be NASA administrator only to have that nomination withdrawn by the president at the end of May, has been meeting with administration officials in a bid to be renominated. That included an interview with Duffy earlier this month.<\/p>\n Duffy, who has served as acting administrator since July, has reportedly expressed interest in keeping the role while continuing to serve as secretary of transportation. That could involve incorporating NASA, an independent agency not part of any Cabinet department, into the Department of Transportation.<\/p>\n That proposal would likely face strong congressional resistance. \u201cNASA has been an independent agency since its founding, and I think it should continue to be so,\u201d Rep. George Whitesides, D-Calif., vice ranking member of the House Science Committee, told reporters after a panel discussion at the New Liberal Action Summit Oct. 21.<\/p>\n He called the idea a \u201cfundamental mismatch,\u201d noting that NASA is a research and development agency while the Department of Transportation is primarily a regulator. \u201cI don\u2019t think it will happen. Congress is not going to let NASA move to the DOT,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n There has been broader support for Duffy\u2019s proposal to reintroduce competition for the Artemis 3 lunar landing, although NASA has provided few details about how it would work. A NASA spokesperson said SpaceX and Blue Origin have been asked to submit \u201cacceleration approaches\u201d for their lunar lander concepts by Oct. 29. The agency also plans to issue a request for information to allow other companies to propose alternatives.<\/p>\n Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator during the first Trump administration, is among those who have questioned NASA\u2019s current approach. He told the Senate Commerce Committee last month that it was \u201chighly unlikely\u201d the U.S. would return humans to the moon before China\u2019s first crewed landing<\/a>, citing the complexity of SpaceX\u2019s Starship architecture.<\/p>\n At a panel hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies Oct. 21, Bridenstine declined to comment directly on Duffy\u2019s Artemis 3 plans. \u201cWe have a NASA administrator and he\u2019s working his way through it. I fully appreciate what he\u2019s trying to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to leave it to him to make those decisions,\u201d he added, noting that he and Duffy are friends from their time in Congress. \u201cI certainly don\u2019t want to opine about or second-guess what he\u2019s got in front of him.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk, meanwhile, voiced support for Isaacman\u2019s potential renomination to lead NASA. Responding to a post from venture capitalist Shaun Maguire, who wrote, \u201cI cannot imagine a better NASA Administrator than Jared Isaacman,\u201d Musk replied<\/a> with a single emoji: \u201c\ud83d\udcaf.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk hurled insults at NASA\u2019s acting administrator a day after complaints that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[4401,18,1647,29731,51917,19,17,1024,133,11200,3977,451],"class_list":{"0":"post-138280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-artemis","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-elon-musk","11":"tag-hls","12":"tag-human-landing-system","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-nasa","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-sean-duffy","18":"tag-sn","19":"tag-space"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}