The naming of Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy as interim NASA administrator was as much of a surprise as was President Trump’s withdrawal of his nomination of Jared Isaacman to the same post.

So, how is Duffy doing, trying to bring the space agency out from its summer of discontent?

Duffy has been spending a lot of his time boosting the Artemis program, designed to return astronauts to the moon and eventually send them to Mars.

On the social media platform X, he posted that he “spoke with the smart leaders of our mission directorates” and the consensus was “America MUST dominate space and our critical moon mission, #ARTEMIS, must be as known & supported by America just as Apollo was!”

He finished saying he was “fired up and ready to launch.”

Duffy repeated his advocacy of the Artemis program on the Fox News show Hannity. He noted that Artemis would proceed in three phases: a return to the moon, establishing a lunar base or outpost and crewed expeditions to Mars.

Considering how well the Artemis program polls, Duffy is pursuing a sound political strategy. The trick is that the steps he laid out have to happen on a sensible schedule. Fortunately, Artemis II, the crewed trip around the moon, is slated to occur early in 2026.

On the other........

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