Space

Elon Musk threatens to retire Dragon spacecraft... but does NASA have a Plan B?

America’s human spaceflight program may soon be hanging by a single thread, and it’s fraying under Trump’s leadership.

America’s human spaceflight program may soon be hanging by a single thread, and it’s fraying under Trump’s leadership.
Joe Skipper
Calum Roche
Sports-lover turned journalist, born and bred in Scotland, with a passion for football (soccer). He’s also a keen follower of NFL, NBA, golf and tennis, among others, and always has an eye on the latest in science, tech and current affairs. As Managing Editor at AS USA, uses background in operations and marketing to drive improvements for reader satisfaction.
Update:

NASA’s dependency on Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has never looked more fragile than it does now. And it’s not because of a technical failure or a lost mission – but because of a political spat that’s spilled over into threats, delays, and, it would seem, a surprising lack of contingency planning.

Why did Musk make Dragon threat?

The trouble began when Musk took exception to former President Donald Trump’s push for a sweeping new spending bill. Critics, including Musk, warned that the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” would balloon federal costs. Trump, never one to let a feud idle, responded by publicly threatening to terminate SpaceX’s government contracts – contracts that include some of NASA’s most critical spaceflight operations.

Musk, ever quick to react, didn’t hesitate. In a since-modified post on X (formerly Twitter), he said SpaceX would begin decommissioning its Dragon fleet immediately. The post sent tremors through a spaceflight community already on edge. Though Musk walked back the statement, the episode made one thing clear: NASA’s reliance on SpaceX is not just a technical gamble, but now a political one too.

What does NASA do without Musk?

In theory, NASA does have another option. In practice, it’s nowhere near launch-ready.

Boeing’s Starliner was meant to be the co-pilot in NASA’s Commercial Crew Program – a twin-track approach to flying astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) without needing Russia’s Soyuz system. But while SpaceX has completed 17 missions and carried 64 humans to orbit, Starliner has sputtered.

Last year, the spacecraft finally reached the ISS with a crew aboard – but the trip was plagued by thruster failures and helium leaks. The crew didn’t stay the planned eight days. You may remember they spent more than nine months docked while engineers assessed the damage. The spacecraft eventually made it home safely, but with a long to-do list in tow.

NASA is still unsure if the next Starliner flight will carry humans or just cargo. And even that mission, at best, won’t happen until early 2026. An actual operational mission could slip to summer 2026, a full six years behind schedule.

Who is flying now?

Boeing are not yet in motion. NASA quietly reassigned two astronauts from Boeing’s delayed Starliner-1 mission to SpaceX’s upcoming Crew-11 flight. Meanwhile, SpaceX will soon have five Crew Dragons in rotation, keeping U.S. access to the ISS alive.

That access didn’t exist between 2011 and 2020, when NASA relied on Russia’s Soyuz after retiring the Space Shuttle. If Musk pulls Dragon, we’re right back there.

With Starliner grounded until at least 2026, there’s no current backup plan. And Soyuz, given current U.S.-Russia tensions, isn’t a reassuring fallback.

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