NASA’s Boeing rockets have carried astronauts farther than ever before, but the Trump administration is looking for competitors for a replacement. About a week before the $24 billion Space Launch System (SLS) will push the Artemis II mission’s four crew members around the moon, NASA asked Boeing rivals what alternatives they could offer to its ambitious plan for future lunar trips. It was almost immediately echoed in the White House budget request, which put a major question mark over the future of Boeing’s troubled 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 key test for billionaire fintech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, whom Trump nominated last year to run NASA, in his efforts to make the space agency faster and more efficient. He is counting on companies like SpaceX to provide cheaper alternatives to expensive systems from older players like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. “Because that program is based on such history, it involves contractors, hundreds of subcontractors, thousands of people, it is expensive,” Isaacman said in February. That network of support — Artemis counts suppliers in all 50 states — has helped SLS survive years of delayed attempts to dismantle it. Last week, the White House said it would try again to find a commercial replacement. With the deadline for landing astronauts on the Moon before Trump leaves office being 2028 and China planning its own mission by the end of the decade, Isaacman is under pressure to get the job done. Although legacy providers like Boeing have struggled to meet deadlines in the past, their technologies are proven. New rivals like SpaceX and Blue Origin have not yet shown that their rockets can reach the Moon.(This is a Bloomberg story)