NASA’s Boeing rocket has successfully propelled astronauts farther into space than ever before, but the Trump administration is looking to rivals for an alternative. About a week before the $24 billion Space Launch System (SLS) propels the four crew members of the Artemis 2 mission around the moon, NASA asked Boeing’s competitors what options they could offer for its ambitious future lunar mission plan.
That was echoed almost immediately in the White House budget request, putting a big question mark over the future of Boeing’s embattled rocket after a decade of development. The fate of the program – worth tens of billions of dollars over the next few years – has become a major test for Jared Isaacman, the billionaire financial technology entrepreneur whom Trump appointed to run NASA last year, in his efforts to make the space agency faster and more efficient. It relies on companies like SpaceX to provide cheaper alternatives to expensive systems produced by legacy companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. “Because this program relies on such history, and it has contractors, hundreds of subcontractors, tens of thousands of people, it’s expensive,” Isaacman said in February. “It’s not a car that you’re going to take to and from the moon several times a year while building a moon base the way the president wants.
” This support network — which includes Artemis suppliers in all 50 states — has helped SLS survive years of delays in efforts to eliminate it. Last week, the White House said it would again try to find trade alternatives. With a 2028 deadline to send astronauts to the moon before Trump leaves office, and China planning its own mission by the end of the decade, Isaacman is under pressure to deliver. Although traditional providers like Boeing have struggled to meet deadlines in the past, their technologies have proven their worth. Newer competitors like SpaceX and Blue Origin have yet to show that their rockets can reach the Moon.(This is a Bloomberg story)
