Will Trump cancel Artemis?
Boeing has informed its employees that NASA may cancel SLS contracts
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/boeing-has-informed-its-employees-that-nasa-may-cancel-sls-contracts/
The primary contractor for the Space Launch System rocket, Boeing, is preparing for the possibility that NASA cancels the long-running program.
On Friday, with less than an hour's notice, David Dutcher, Boeing's vice president and program manager for the SLS rocket, scheduled an all-hands meeting for the approximately 800 employees working on the program.
NASA has spent approximately $3 billion a year developing the rocket and its ground systems over the program's lifetime. While handing out guaranteed contracts to Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Aerojet, and other contractors, the government's rocket-building enterprise has been superseded by the private industry. SpaceX has developed two heavy lift rockets in the last decade, and Blue Origin just launched its own, with the New Glenn booster. Each of these rockets is at least partially reusable and flies at less than one-tenth the cost of the SLS rocket.
During his first administration Trump was pushing for a lunar landing in 2024. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/trump-nasa-moon-2024/585880/
But Artemis seems to be a boondoggle that is intended for little more than supporting industry in various states. https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/all-50-u-s-states-contribute-to-nasas-artemis-missions/ share