what we are looking at could be the beginning of the end for the Artemis moonlanding program as We Know It On The Chopping Block right now is NASA's longsuffering lame duck Moon rocket the space launch system which has been in development for the better part of 14 years now at the infamous Aerospace contractor Boeing at a cost to the US government of around $3 billion per year and for all of that has flown to space one time in 2022 the strongest indication that SLS is in trouble has come from Boeing themselves the company held a
staff meeting on February 7th that was broadcast to all 800 employees working on the SLS rocket in a six-minute scripted statement Boeing vice president David ducher warned the company to brace for massive layoffs that could soon arrive in a statement to RS Technica a spokesperson said quote to align with revisions to the emis program and cost expectations today we informed our space launch system team of the potential for approximately 400 fewer positions by April 2025 according to US law a large corporation must provide at least 60 days notice ahead of mass layoffs and Boeing is
not saying that this will happen but they're strongly indicating that this is what might happen which is not something that the company would be publicly releasing unless they considered it to be a high probability now here's what the other side is saying in a public statement on February 8th that followed the Boeing staff meeting NASA called the SLS rocket an essential component of the Artemis program writing quote NASA and its industry Partners continuously work together to evaluate and align budget resources contractor performance and schedule uals to execute Mission requirements efficiently safely and successfully in support
of NASA's Moon to Mars goals and objectives now it's important to note that leadership at Nasa is also in transition at the moment so we shouldn't be taking anything from the agency as a long-term truth NASA currently has an acting administrator in place that's Janet Petro a former US Army pilot mechanical engineer and in 2021 was serving as d director of the John F Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral ours technica's Eric Berger reports that he has multiple sources confirming a healthy debate is ongoing inside the White House that includes senior leadership at Nasa specifically
acting administrator petro and they've been talking specifically about the future of the SLS rocket and emis moon program Berger reports that some commercial space Advocates have been pressing hard to cancel the rocket outright while pro has been arguing the White House to allow NASA to fly the Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 missions using the initial version of the SLS rocket before the program is cancelled March is going to be the turning point in this narrative because that's when President Trump will deliver his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2026 basically a list of things that
he wants Congress to pass and based on the past 3 weeks that will be a long and ambitious list space exploration inspires us to reach for the stars and embrace transformation just like astronauts prepare for the unknown you two can take control of your future and triple 10 is here to help if you feel like your career has hit a dead end or you're looking for a way to increase your income or work remotely triple 10 offers a path forward with flexible beginner-friendly boot camps designed for real life since 2019 over 1,000 graduates have found
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your investment use my code the Space Race for 30% off all programs click the link in my description or scan the QR code for a free career consultation going back to our Boeing staff meeting out of the 800 people working on SLS they've threatened to lay off up to 400 of them that still leaves 400 people working on the rocket program and that might be just the right amount to finish the job of building out hardware for two more Artemis missions just enough to get American boots on the surface of the Moon for the first
time since 1972 and beat the Chinese in the first leg of this 21st century Space Race as for what comes after that when sources indicate commercial space Advocates within the White House it doesn't take a whole lot of creativity to imagine who that might be Elon Musk or Harry balls as he's currently going by on X last commented on the future of SLS and Artemis in a post on December 25th while spending much of Christmas Day debating US immigration he did slip in an opinion about the moon landing program quote regarding space the emis architecture
is extremely inefficient as it is a jobs maximizing program not a results maximizing program something entirely new is needed needed Mr Balls also wrote that said talking in terms of specific companies Boeing is on a much better track with the new CEO the prior guy had no idea how airplanes or Rockets worked just zero so even the harshest and most influential critics may still have enough faith in Boeing to see just two more Rockets reach completion before taking them out back and uh you know In fairness to Boeing the one Flight of the SLS did
go perfectly there was no issue with the booster or upper stage propulsion system the biggest problem with emis 1 the heat shield which was used on the re-entry capsule of the Orion spacecraft that's on Lockheed Martin and NASA it was their idea to use the same old heat shield material from the Apollo program and they refused to adopt the modern material that's been used on the SpaceX Dragon capsule for a decade now with no issue if not for that one very major problem there would at least have been a possibility that Artemis 2 might have
flown by now or at least would be currently ready to fly and if that were the case then it would be easier to say that SLS block One Is Safe up until the first moon landing but with essentially nothing to show for their efforts Boeing doesn't have much of a leg to stand on in their defense according to an update from January 29th Boeing crews are currently stacking segment M ments of the SLS twin solid rocket boosters and they expect that process to be completed by the end of February unfortunately that doesn't mean that the
rocket will be ready to fly NASA's Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell Thompson said that he expects tanking tests of the Artemis 2 SLS booster won't happen until at least the fall of 2025 while there are still arguments to be made both for and against the SLS block one road map leading up to emis 3 the outlook for SLS beyond that first moon landing is decidedly more Bleak the original plan for Artemis which was released under the first Trump Administration lays out a path that hinges on the SLS rocket growing continuously larger and more powerful over
time the first upgrade to block 1B would introduce a more powerful upper stage that drastically increases cargo capacity to lunar orbit this is a project that Boeing is working on right right now it's potentially the project that's employing the 400 unfortunate jobs that are up for elimination and we know that it's not going well in August 2024 NASA's Inspector General reported significant issues with Boeing's work on SLS block 1B primarily around a lack of quality control and seemingly unqualified Workforce the report stated quote given Boeing's quality management and its related Workforce challenges we we are
concerned these factors could potentially impact the safety of the SLS and Orion spacecraft including its crew and cargo So based on this evidence and factoring in not only cost but performance and safety as well it would appear that moving forward with SLS block 1B and any other future variants of the rocket beyond that is simply a bad idea it doesn't make sense and it's almost certainly not going to happen as for the future of SLS block one Hardware that has for the most part already been built already been flight tested and definitely has been paid
for many times over this is Up For Debate and it's particularly hard to call because we have yet to hear from the most important player in the game Mr Jared isaacman the soon Tobe Chief administrator of NASA we know that he is not a huge fan of the SLS Hardware but we also know that Jared is a man of action he's flown to space on his own dime he's gone up there and put his own ass on the line to push the boundaries of our existing spaceflight Hardware so it would be a safe bet that
Isaac man's NASA will favor the option that gets Americans on the moon as fast as possible and for right now at least that still looks to be SLS and Orion and then there's Elon Musk not officially involved in NASA or emis planning but a man who has quickly become very influential in Donald Trump's Inner Circle Elon has made it well known that his only real concern is getting people to Mars he doesn't particularly care about landing on the moon and he wrote this clearly on January 2nd quote no we're going straight to Mars the Moon
is a distraction as for who Elon is referring to by we is that SpaceX or America either way it's not boating well for the future of Artemis as we know it and the long-standing argument has been that we could simply replace SLS and Orion with the SpaceX Starship rocket but if SpaceX considers the moon to be nothing more than an exraction on the road to Mars then it would seem unlikely that they're going to buy into an expanded role beyond what they've already signed up for which is to provide a lunar lander for the Orion
crew to reach the moon's surface and return to orbit for this they're being paid around $4 billion from the US government which is essentially funding the ongoing construction of Starship prototypes it's paying for the development of orbital refilling procedures and giving SpaceX an opportunity to test the life support systems and deep space navigation of Starship all of this serves the company's mission of preparing for the first flight to Mars but beyond that point any resources spent on further explor ation of the Moon would be a distraction from Mars operations just like Elon said and taking
an optimistic approach here maybe that opens up new opportunities for other companies on the moon blue origin for example musk and Bezos appear to be on much more friendly terms these days blue has successfully reached orbit with their own heavy lift rocket than new Glenn blue is also working on their own lunar lander it might not be as capable as Starship but it's still plenty good in enough to get American astronauts doing long-term explorations of the moon on its own so A change is coming and it is coming fast but that doesn't necessarily mean that
we have lost the Moon it just means that Artemis will evolve into something a little more unexpected
