On Thursday, December 18, 2025, the White House published an executive order with an unusually blunt title: “Ensuring American Space Superiority.” It arrived just hours after Jared Isaacman was sworn in as NASA’s 15th administrator. The timing mattered. This is not a normal “space exploration” memo. It is an attempt to tie NASA’s Moon plans, the Pentagon’s threat models, and the commercial space economy into one timeline—and then dare the system to keep up.
The document’s headline goal is simple enough to fit on a campaign sign: put Americans back on the Moon by 2028. But the order is not really about a single landing.
