Amid significant budget cuts, NASA is fast-tracking the development of nuclear reactors on the moon and next-generation space stations with one clear objective: beating U.S. adversaries in the new space race.

Two new memos signed by interim NASA chief and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy outline a bold strategy to secure strategic ground on the moon. The centerpiece of this effort is a lunar nuclear reactor, a renewable and stable power source to support long-term exploration.

‘The goal is to power everything,’ a senior NASA official told Fox News Digital. ‘Our systems, habitats, rovers, robotic equipment, even future mining operations — everything we want to do on the moon depends on this.’

The moon’s environment makes this a necessity. Its month-long day cycle — two weeks of daylight followed by two weeks of darknessc — renders solar power unreliable. A reactor would allow missions to function around the clock.

China and Russia set sights on the moon

NASA officials warn that China and Russia have publicly announced plans for a joint lunar nuclear project by the mid-2030s. If they succeed first, they could establish exclusive control over the moon’s most valuable areas, locations with the most light and access to water and ice.

‘They could set up a ‘keep-out zone’ in the prime locations,’ the NASA official cautioned.

Despite financial constraints, Duffy’s leadership signals a renewed priority to lunar and Martian exploration. 

‘China has already landed on the far side of the moon. We never have,’ the official added. ‘They’re moving on a steady path to dominate this domain.’

New contract structure for nuclear reactor development

The new directive solicits proposals for a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor — enough to power about 80 homes — with a target launch date of 2030. It also requires NASA to appoint a dedicated program leader.

Today, many robotic spacecraft operate at just a few watts, the equivalent of a couple of light bulbs, which severely limits scientific capabilities. While the ISS uses solar panels, that model doesn’t work on the moon or Mars, where sunlight is too weak or unreliable.

Replacing the ISS: Commercial stations on the horizon

The second memo shifts focus to replacing the aging and leaking International Space Station (ISS), which is scheduled to be retired in 2030. Without a successor, China would become the only country with a permanently crewed station in orbit.

NASA now plans to select two commercial partners within six months of issuing new requests for proposals. Under Duffy’s direction, the agency is moving away from traditional fixed-price contracts and will instead use flexible Space Act Agreements, which give companies more freedom in how they build stations while saving time and money.

‘We’re telling companies what we need,’ a senior NASA official said. ‘But we’re not prescribing how they must do it. That flexibility saves us both time and resources.’

NASA wants the new station to be cheaper and easier to maintain than the ISS. Originally, it envisioned a platform that could host two astronauts for six months. But, under the revised plan, the minimum requirement is four astronauts for just one month.

Background: The Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destination program

NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destination (CLD) initiative, launched in 2021, was structured in two phases:

• Phase 1: Fund companies — like Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — to design private space stations.
• Phase 2: Award contracts for building and certifying selected stations.

Duffy’s directive calls for skipping fixed-price contracts in Phase 2 and continuing with Space Act Agreements, in line with tightening budget constraints.

Budget cuts reshape NASA’s future

According to the Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal, NASA’s overall budget would drop from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion, a 25% cut. The Science Mission Directorate, which oversees research in planetary science, astrophysics, Earth observation and heliophysics, would face a nearly 50% reduction. However, human spaceflight programs are slated for increased funding.

NASA has also confirmed that nearly 4,000 employees — about 20% of its workforce — have taken voluntary buyouts in recent months.

Despite these setbacks, agency officials remain optimistic. 

‘Multiple companies tell us they can deliver a station within two years,’ one senior official said. ‘Timelines are always challenging, but we believe we can meet these goals — even on a leaner budget.’

Senate Republicans last month were able to advance President Donald Trump’s desire to clawback billions in federal spending, an effort carried to fruition for the first time in nearly three decades by a first-term senator.

While the effort to slash funding to NPR, PBS and foreign aid was born in the White House, it was executed thanks in large part to Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo.

Schmitt, who was first elected to the Senate in 2022, has become an envoy of sorts for Trump’s agenda in the upper chamber. He has a strong relationship with the president that dates back to his first campaign, which has developed into a regular invite to join Trump for rounds of golf.

He’s launched probes against former President Joe Biden’s alleged mental decline, helped smooth over concerns during passage of Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ and contends that ‘intuitively’ he understands the president’s America First message. 

And his role in bridging the gap between the White House and the Senate, along with negotiating among his conference to get the $9 billion package across the line, has seen his stock rise immensely within the Senate GOP.

But, in an interview with Fox News Digital, he said his entire goal is to just be helpful.

‘I think I approach it with that kind of humility,’ Schmitt said. ‘But I also, I want to be successful, and I want the agenda to move forward. I think it’s really important. Being on the golf course with President Trump is a great honor, and we have a lot of fun. He’s a very good golfer.’

Schmitt, who previously served as Missouri’s attorney general before launching a bid for the Senate, regularly clashed with the Biden administration and said that his role of rebuking lockdowns, vaccine mandates, censorship and mass migration informed how he currently views legislating.

‘My job was to stand in the gap and fight back, with the hopes that President Trump would return,’ he said.

Trump endorsed Schmitt in 2022, and in return the lawmaker became one of the first senators to back his reelection campaign the following year. That turned into Schmitt becoming a mainstay on the campaign trail, jetting across the country in Trump Force One where ‘Big Macs and double cheeseburgers and quarter pounders with cheese’ flowed.

And when Trump won, Schmitt had the opportunity to leave the Senate and join the administration as attorney general, but he opted to stay in the upper chamber.

Had he jumped ship, Trump’s recissions package may not have been able to pass muster with the Senate GOP, where appropriators raised concerns about the impact that clawing back already agreed-upon spending would have on the government funding process and others raised issues with the funding that was targeted.

‘This wouldn’t have happened without Eric Schmitt,’ Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital. 

Britt was part of the same 2022 class of freshman senators as Schmitt, which included other notable Republicans, like Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., and Vice President J.D. Vance.

She said Schmitt’s leadership on the rescissions package, like listening to lawmakers’ concerns and negotiations with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, to take the lead on the package, led to a final product that could actually pass in the diverse Senate GOP.

Indeed, Schmitt agreed to allow as many amendments to the bill as lawmakers wanted and included his own change to the clawback that would save funding for global AIDS and HIV prevention — a key change that helped bring more Republicans on board.

‘When Eric speaks, people listen,’ Britt said. ‘And he is thoughtful about when he uses his voice, and when he does it most definitely makes an impact.’

Schmitt, however, is more humble in how he views his part in the process.

‘People can label,’ Schmitt said. ‘I don’t get too hung up on any of that. Like for me, honestly, I feel fortunate to be in the position that I’m in. There’s really not a lot of daylight between the President’s agenda and the things that I support.’

Still, he was hopeful that another recissions package would come, describing it as ‘a good exercise for us,’ but noted that the timing for the remaining fiscal year would be tricky given the GOP’s continued push to blast through Democrats’ blockade on nominees and the looming government funding deadline when lawmakers return after Labor Day.

But getting the first one done was key to opening the door for more.

‘I think that was also part of what was on the line,’ he said. ‘When we were, you know, in the middle of the night, trying to make sure we had the votes, was that we have to prove that we have the ability to do it. And once you do it, there’s muscle memory associated with that. There’s a cultural shift in how we view things.’

However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has demanded that Republicans commit to a bipartisan appropriations process and eschew further rescissions packages.

Should another come from the White House in the waning days of this fiscal year, it could spell trouble in Congress’ bid to avert a partial government shutdown by Sept. 30.

‘I really think it would be a bad idea for Republicans to alter our course of action based on what Democrat threats are,’ Schmitt said. ‘At the end of the day, they’re an obstructionist party without a message, without a messenger.’ 

President Donald Trump is preparing to announce new secondary tariffs Friday on nations who conduct trade with Russia amid its deadly war in Ukraine. 

The White House has remained tight-lipped on what those tariffs will look like after the president first said in July they would amount to ‘100%’ tariffs before causing confusion earlier this week when he told reporters he ‘never said a percentage.’

While the specifics of what tax rates nations that trade with Russia could face remain unclear, Trump’s change in posture toward Russian President Vladimir Putin has become increasingly evident. 

‘Trump’s frustrated that the Russians have not taken advantage of his patience and generous offers, but it’s very interesting that even after Trump announced he was moving submarines, and even after he announced the tough tariffs, the Russians still want to talk to him,’ Fred Fleitz, who served as a deputy assistant to Trump and chief of staff of the National Security Council during the president’s first term, told Fox News Digital.

‘Putin does not want to anger Trump,’ he added. ‘Putin never worried about angering Biden, and I think that this shows a degree of respect. 

‘It shows what Trump has achieved by exercising leadership on the global stage. And we’ll see what happens,’ Fleitz said, adding he hoped it was not merely a stalling tactic by Putin.

Trump’s return to the White House brought with it a sense of shock as he appeared to distance Washington from its top allies in Europe in favor of attempting to improve diplomatic relations with Putin, culminating in the infamous Oval Office showdown with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February. 

While the tussle brought renewed support from his top MAGA base, who favor ending U.S. involvement in foreign wars, it prompted concern among security experts. Ultimately, Trump’s patience with Putin began to shift, with the president consistently expressing his frustration at the Kremlin chief’s continued brutal attacks in Ukraine. 

In mid-July, while sitting next to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump announced Putin had 50 days to enter into a ceasefire or face ‘very severe’ tariffs that would affect Moscow’s top commodity, oil. 

‘Tariffs at about 100%, you’d call them secondary tariffs,’ he had said, indicating that nations that trade with Russia will see 100% tariffs slapped on them when trading with the U.S. 

This would most greatly affect China and India, according to data released by the U.S. government Thursday, which showed both nations account for 46% of all Russian oil purchases in 2025.

But the U.S. is also the No. 1 export market for both China and India, which means higher price tags at the checkout line on their products will make Americans think twice before completing those purchases. 

After ongoing trade negotiations with both nations and Putin’s continued war effort in Ukraine, Trump last week pushed up his deadline to within 10 days of July 29, forcing a new deadline of Friday.

But while his promised tariffs were met with applause by some in the GOP, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — he, along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-N.Y., is pushing the charge for 500% sanctions on Russia — other Republican members have not backed the move. 

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has been outspoken against not only Trump’s tariffs but the bipartisan sanction push and argued to Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow this week that Trump’s tariffs on allies and foes alike will amount to $2 trillion in taxes for the American consumer.

But Fleitz pushed back on this argument and said he is not convinced that the tariffs will hurt the U.S. or Chinese economy, though Russia and India are likely to feel the pain. 

‘I think they’re going to hurt the Russian and Indian economies,’ he said, noting that India could recover by buying oil elsewhere. Though some reporting has suggested that India may have saved over $30 billion by increasingly turning to Russian oil during 2022-2024 due to Moscow’s price cuts. 

‘It is going to be another factor that’s going to pressure Putin to agree to a ceasefire. I don’t know if that’s going to happen immediately or in a few months, but I think it is going to put real pressure, inflict real pain on Russia,’ Fleitz said. 

Once a staunch Trump ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R- Ga., took to X this week in response to a post by Trump that he would be enforcing tariffs on India for purchasing Russian oil and said, ‘End Indian H1-B visas replacing American jobs instead and stop funding and sending weapons to the Obama/Biden/Neocon Ukraine Russia war.’

Trump’s favorable transition toward Ukraine and European allies has also ruffled some MAGA feathers, though security experts have argued it has given the president better leverage to take on major adversaries like Putin, and by extension, China. 

‘Diplomacy and negotiations are a good thing,’ said Fleitz, who serves as vice chair of the America First Policy Institute’s Center for American Security. ‘Peacemaking takes time, and the U.S.-Russia relationship was in a very bad situation when Trump came to office.

‘I think these sanctions will hurt Russia very badly,’ Fleitz continued. ‘The fact that Trump knows that secondary sanctions on India has, at least temporarily, hurt our relationship is really a remarkable sign of how committed Trump is to these sanctions.

‘There’s not going to be exceptions. It’s not going to be some type of soft strategy with all kinds of loopholes,’ he added. ‘I think it shows to Putin how serious Trump is, and it gives Trump leverage to negotiate with Putin.’

Former President Joe Biden’s campaign team allegedly opted against a Super Bowl interview last year because of special counsel Robert Hur’s report, Fox News Digital has learned.

A source familiar with Anita Dunn’s interview with the House Oversight Committee told Fox News Digital the report, in which Hur described Biden as ‘well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,’ factored into Biden breaking with the decades-old tradition.

But a source close to Dunn told Fox News Digital she said Biden’s team decided against doing a Super Bowl interview last year because it thought the main coverage would be about what he did with classified records and not about the president’s policy decisions. The source claimed the choice was made before Hur’s report was released.

Dunn sat with House investigators for just over five hours Thursday as Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., probes allegations that Biden’s inner circle worked to conceal evidence of mental decline in the former president.

The source familiar with her interview said Dunn also told committee staff that Biden’s inner circle came to a consensus he should not take a cognitive test, concluding it would offer no political benefit.

It comes two days after Fox News Digital was told that ex-deputy White House chief of staff Bruce Reed, who met with House investigators Tuesday, said Biden’s White House physician Kevin O’Connor called cognitive tests ‘meaningless.’

The source close to Dunn said Thursday that Biden’s team believed he would be able to pass a cognitive test, even if they saw no political benefit in one.

Dunn also told investigators she was not aware of Biden’s stutter, which he’s said he dealt with all his life, until media coverage of it in 2020, the first source said. 

‘She went on to blame the media for pushing the narrative that President Biden was old,’ the source said.

The practice of pre-Super Bowl interviews began with former President George W. Bush opting to sit for an interview before the big game in 2004 and has followed by both former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump, though Trump also skipped out on a Super Bowl interview in 2019.

Biden sat for Super Bowl interviews in 2021 and 2022, but did not in 2023 and 2024.

In 2023, talks about a pre-Super Bowl interview fell through with Fox Corp.

Hur’s report was released publicly Feb. 8, 2024. The Super Bowl was played Feb. 11 that year.

Hur was appointed special counsel by former Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2023 to investigate whether Biden mishandled classified documents. 

Hur ‘uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice-presidency when he was a private citizen’ but said it did not ‘establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.’

Given that Biden ‘would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,’ Hur said, ‘it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.’

Dunn is the tenth ex-Biden administration official to appear before the House Oversight Committee.

In addition to investigating the alleged cover-up, Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is looking into whether decisions were approved via autopen without the former president’s knowledge.

Of particular interest to Comer is the myriad of clemency orders Biden signed in the latter half of his presidency, though the former president told The New York Times last month he was behind every decision.

Dunn, like most who appeared before her, defended Biden’s mental acuity to committee investigators.

‘The president made it clear that decisions rested with him, and White House staff brought issues to him for him to decide,’ Dunn said in her opening statement, obtained by Fox News Digital. ‘I believed strongly then, and I believe just as strongly today, that Joe Biden was an effective president who accomplished many important things for the American people.’

A spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee criticized Dunn after the statement came out in the media, however.

‘It’s no surprise Anita Dunn is telling the American people not to believe their own eyes, claiming Joe Biden was sharp and ‘fully engaged.’ This opening statement, leaked to media before Ms. Dunn even delivered it, is yet another example of the absurd lengths Biden loyalists will go to defend his failed presidency,’ the spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital also reached out to a representative for Biden and to Dunn’s counsel for comment.

While President Donald Trump previously refrained from speaking ill of Russian President Vladimir Putin, those days are over. 

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has changed the nature of their dynamic. Although the two appeared to get along, at least publicly, during Trump’s first administration, their relationship has unraveled as the more recent conflict persists. 

In recent weeks, Trump has refused to mince his words when asked about Putin. Trump said during a Cabinet meeting July 8 he was fed up with Putin and said he was eyeing potentially imposing new sanctions on Russia. 

‘We get a lot of bulls— thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,’ Trump said. ‘He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.’ 

John Hardie, Russia program deputy director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Russia started to attract ire from Trump dating back to March after Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire. But Russia has failed to get on board with a ceasefire. 

‘Really, since then, I think Trump has come to view the Russians as the main impediment to a deal,’ Hardie told Fox News Digital Thursday. 

Additionally, Hardie said that Trump has also grown frustrated that Russia will launch drone and missile attacks against Ukraine, even after directly speaking with Putin. 

‘What he’s sort of latched on to are these Russian drone and missile barrages,’ Hardie said. ‘That really seems to resonate with him.’  

Tensions only have continued to escalate between the U.S. and Russia since the July Cabinet meeting. 

Trump announced July 14 that he would sign off on ‘severe tariffs’ against Russia if Moscow failed to agree to a peace deal within 50 days. He then dramatically reduced the deadline to only 10–12 days — which ends Friday. 

The decision to reduce the timeline prompted former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to caution that ‘each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war.’ 

In addition to economic sanctions, Trump responded to Medvedev and issued a rare statement disclosing that two U.S. Navy submarines would be moved in response to escalating threats from Russia. 

‘I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,’ Trump said Aug. 1. 

Trump’s disclosure of the submarine presence puts additional pressure on Russia to come to the negotiating table, according to Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and director of the Hudson Institute think tank’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology.

‘We have used very sparingly submarines to try to influence adversary behavior before, but this is pretty unusual, to do it against a nuclear-powered adversary like Russia in response to a nuclear threat by Russia,’ Clark told Fox News Digital Monday. ‘So I think this is trying to essentially push back on Russia’s frequent and long-standing threats to use nuclear weapons in part of the Ukraine conflict.’

Momentum is picking up on negotiations though, and U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin Wednesday. 

Trump said in a post on Truth Social afterward that ‘great progress’ was made during the meeting. And now, Trump and Putin are expected to meet face to face imminently in an attempt to finally advance negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. 

Still, Hardie said he is skeptical that the meeting between Putin and Trump will result in meaningful progress. 

‘I don’t expect a summit to produce much,’ Hardie said. ‘And I think Putin could try to use the summit to placate Trump and kind of buy more time continues assault on Ukraine, but I think his goal is he’d love to be able to enlist Trump in his effort to impose these harsh terms on Ukraine.’ 

Russia has pushed for concessions in a peace deal that include barring Ukraine from joining NATO, preventing foreign peacekeeper troops from deploying to Ukraine after the conflict, and adjusting some of the borders that previously were Ukraine’s.

It’s unclear if Trump plans to announce any additional economic burdens upon Russia Friday in accordance with the deadline that he imposed demanding that Russia signal willingness to end the conflict. But according to Trump, the ball is in Putin’s court. 

‘It’s going to be up to him,’ Trump told reporters Thursday. ‘We’re going to see what he has to say. It’s going to be up to him. Very disappointed.’

The White House did not disclose any details regarding potential Friday sanctions, but said that Trump wants to meet with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Putin to resolve the conflict. 

‘The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to this meeting,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘President Trump would like to meet with both President Putin and President Zelensky because he wants this brutal war to end. The White House is working through the details of these potential meetings and details will be provided at the appropriate time.’