Space Frontier Foundation Welcomes Cancellation of Space Launch System
- Sean Mahoney
- May 9, 2025
- 2 min read
WASHINGTON, May 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Space Frontier Foundation praised the FY2026 NASA Budget's cancellation of the Space Launch System (SLS) after the Artemis III mission and replacing it with commercial partnerships for faster, better, and cheaper human exploration of the Moon and Mars. NASA has spent over $35 billion on SLS in the past 15 years and has only conducted one launch, and future missions are expected to cost $4 billion per launch.
The Foundation has opposed the cost-plus, sole-source contract SLS as unaffordable and unsustainable since the Senate mandated it in 2010, consistent with our core belief that competitive free enterprise is central to opening the solar system to human settlement and development.
"The commercial model for space development has worked three times: ISS cargo resupply, ISS crew transfer, and now small lunar payload delivery. This budget appears to fund new partnerships to create commercial Lunar and Mars transportation systems with maximum commonality, which means the U.S. could achieve multiple competing affordable paths to large lunar cargo and crew delivery/return, Mars cargo delivery/return and eventually crewed missions to the Red Planet," said Foundation Chair Sean Mahoney.
"That said, as citizens committed to human settlement of the solar system, we are concerned about budget cuts to other human spaceflight activities, particularly ISS utilization and building Commercial LEO Destinations to replace the ISS as soon as possible. America should not abandon Earth Orbit even as we push outwards to the Moon, Mars, and beyond," added Foundation Board Member Michael Mealling.
"While we still need to see the details in the full budget when it is released, we hope the Administration and Congress will find additional resources for NASA's most important and cost-effective research projects. Today, we are happy that the President is removing the failed, sole-sourced, cost-plus SLS albatross from our human spaceflight enterprise and embracing a more affordable and sustainable free market approach to opening America's endless frontier," concluded Mahoney.
