No Mention of Artemis in SOTU, But Trump Briefly References Rockets to the Stars

In a nearly two-hour State of the Union address Tuesday evening, President Trump briefly mentioned launching humans “into the stars” as part of a review of America’s history, but not the Artemis program specifically. The Artemis II crew and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman were invited guests, but not singled out.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) posted on X that his guests included the Artemis II crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

After years of meticulous planning and preparation, NASA is poised to launch its first crewed mission to venture around the moon in more than half a century. The Artemis II Crew – Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Mission…

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) February 24, 2026

Rep. George Whitesides (D-CA), a former NASA chief of staff and former CEO of Virgin Galactic, posted that he ran into the crew on Capitol Hill today.

Ran into the crew of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission in advance of the State of the Union.

Very soon, these American heroes will become the first humans to orbit the Moon in over 50 years! pic.twitter.com/YIhkQhPykn

— George Whitesides (@gtwhitesides) February 24, 2026

Also today, Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), a member of the Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee that funds NASA, posted that Isaacman was one of her guests tonight.

Honored to have @NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman as my guest for #SOTU tonight. As NASA is on the forefront of some exciting missions that West Virginia will play a role in, I’m thrilled to welcome Administrator Isaacman to the State of the Union. pic.twitter.com/VZNJN1Pzs5

— Shelley Moore Capito (@SenCapito) February 24, 2026

Nonetheless, the only mentions of space in Trump’s 1 hour and 48 minute speech were a brief shout-out to the U.S. Space Force — “Space Force is my baby, we did that” — which he helped create during his first term, and at the very end a reference to human spaceflight as part of the history of America.

“Americans lifted humanity into the skies on the wings of aluminum and steel, and then we launched mankind into the stars on rockets powered by sheer American will and unyielding American pride.”

Like the Space Force, the Artemis program began in Trump’s first term.  At the time the goal was to land astronauts on the lunar surface by the end of 2024, which Trump expected to be the end of his second term. He lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, but Biden continued the program initially with the same deadline. The date has slipped repeatedly since then, however, and the new goal is 2028, somewhat ironically what will be the end of Trump’s second term.

NASA is getting ready to launch the Artemis II crew around the Moon, the first humans to travel that far from Earth since the Apollo era, but they will not land. NASA hoped to launch them next month, but a helium flow problem with the upper stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket means the “stack” has to return to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs. Rollback is scheduled to begin at 9:00 am ET Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center. A new launch date can’t be set until engineers can inspect the upper stage, determine the problem, make the repairs, return the stack to the launch site, and probably conduct another Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR). The SLS/Orion system had just successfully completed a WDR before this problem was discovered early Saturday morning.

The first mission to land American astronauts on the Moon since Apollo will be Artemis III.  A 2028 mission is dependent on a successful Artemis II as well as completing development of a Human Landing  System (HLS) to get the astronauts down to and back from the surface, and spacesuits for them to wear on the surface.  SpaceX is under contract to build the Artemis III HLS but it’s well behind schedule. Axiom Space is building the spacesuits and they also are taking longer than expected.