SpaceX's Falcon Heavy seen as cheaper alternative to SLS

13/2/2025 6:08

President Donald Trump is being urged to axe an over-budget,

multi-billion dollar moon rocket, sources familiar with the

discussions said, setting up a titanic struggle with Republican

lawmakers whose districts depend on the program's jobs.



Six space industry representatives advising Elon Musk, the

billionaire SpaceX CEO with a tight grip on U.S. space policy,

and Trump have told Reuters they want NASA's $24 billion Space

Launch System (SLS) program canceled or at least phased out over

several years, eyeing what has long been a major cost burden on

the agency - but a crucial pillar of its moon program.



Scaling back the SLS, which is being developed by Boeing

and Northrop Grumman, could offer a boost to

Musk's SpaceX, which is developing its own cheaper, albeit less

powerful rocket called Falcon Heavy.



Employing 28,000 workers across roughly 44 U.S. states, SLS,

which launched for the first time in 2022 after years of

development delays, is one of a few space programs Musk and

Trump's pick to head NASA, Jared Isaacman, have criticized as an

overpriced vestige of outdated rocket technology. Musk has said

SLS "makes me feel sad."



Cancelling SLS could be a major litmus test for Trump and

Musk's effort to streamline government, an effort being

spearheaded by the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.

DOGE representatives have entered NASA headquarters in

Washington and are examining its contracts, two sources said.



If SLS ends up on the chopping block, Musk will struggle to

overcome political hurdles, since cancelling large projects has

ripple effects across other areas of the federal bureaucracy

including widespread job cuts.



SLS, whose workforce is most concentrated in the Republican

strongholds of Alabama and Texas, is a prime example.



Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville from Alabama, whose

state is home to 14,000 SLS jobs, defended the program and

played down cancellation threats.



"The SLS will be fine," Tuberville said. "I know that

there's a lot - because of Elon Musk involved in the DOGE

situation - there's a lot of rumors out there on that, but I got

full confidence on the SLS and the future for them."



Republican Representative Dale Strong, whose Alabama

district includes NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the

epicenter of the SLS workforce, told Reuters that it was not the

time to reassess SLS, saying: "You look what it's doing for

national security, I don't think now is the time to check up” on

it.



Boeing and Northrop Grumman are NASA's top two contractors

building SLS. Delays and roughly $24 billion in development

costs since 2012 have fueled arguments for its retirement. Each

launch could cost between $2 billion to $4 billion, while less

powerful but newer alternatives, such as SpaceX's Falcon Heavy,

have a price tag of around $250 million for each launch.



Strong said he wants the program to be cost effective and

believes competition from a private company like SpaceX would be

healthy.



Boeing declined to comment and Northrop did not immediately

respond to a request for comment.



NASA has struggled to cut costs with SLS and create a plan

to make it more competitive with commercial rockets. SpaceX and

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are introducing newer rockets that are

reusable and far cheaper, but less powerful.



Musk noted, for example, in a January 2020 post on his

social media platform X: "Fundamental issue with SLS is that

it's not reusable, which means that a billion dollar rocket is

blown up every launch!" SpaceX's rockets can be used more than

once.



Isaacman has called SLS "outrageously expensive."



But SLS backers argue that, despite its dismal development

history, SLS is the only rocket designed for a modern moon

mission that has proved capable of successfully flying, and its

cancellation would upend NASA's race with China, whose own moon

landing target of 2030 has pressured the U.S. to keep its moon

program on track.



Texas Representative Brian Babin, the Republican chairman of

a space committee that oversees NASA, said this week: "If we're

going to get to the moon before the Chinese, Space Launch System

is going to have to be what gets us there.”



Bill Nelson, a former senator from Florida and NASA's former

administrator, said SLS will not be canceled in the next four

years.



"I suspect that President Trump would like to be the

president when we land on the moon after a half century, with

five or six billion people watching," Nelson said.



Recent advances in SpaceX's development of Starship, which

is reusable and expected to be far cheaper than current rockets,

have galvanized the anti-SLS critics, arguing Musk's rocket can

effectively do the same tasks at a fraction of the price.



But SLS supporters say that, unlike Musk's Starship, it has

already flown successfully in its operational form and that its

power to lift heavy objects into space in a single launch is

greater than the multiple launches required by a reusable

Starship to carry similar weight.



"You'd be giving up the world's only capability to get

astronauts to the moon, which would be a definite disruption to

U.S. leadership in space," said Tom Culligan, the former top

lobbyist at Boeing's space unit.