Spudis was well known as a leading advocate of a return to the Moon to use its resources to establish and supply a cislunar space transportation system.
Following his graduation he spent several months working with Dr. Ronald Greeley at Ames Research Center studying various aspects of Lunar and Martian geology, before transitioning to an internship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during the Mars landing of that year.
He became a principal investigator at the NASA Office of Space Science, Solar System Exploration Division, planetary geology program.
Eventually Spudis joined the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and became senior staff scientist.
At Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory he developed an imaging radar system for the Indian mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-1.
He was a member of the 2004 Presidential Commission on the Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy.