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While both missions are scheduled for February 2026, the timing is more complex than a simple five-day gap. The two programs pay for space travel in completely different ways.
It’s the entire philosophy of who pays when things go wrong, who profits when expenses spiral, and what kind of program Americans can afford to sustain.
Cost Structure Comparison
The Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule carrying the Artemis II crew have consumed $23.8 billion for SLS development alone—about 26 percent of the entire program budget through 2025.
SpaceX’s entire Commercial Crew contract totals $4.9 billion for 14 flights through 2030. Individual mission costs for contract extensions have ranged from $258.7 million to $288 million per mission.
The Crew-12 flight represents routine, relatively affordable access to orbit provided by a company that absorbs losses when development expenses exceed projections. The Artemis program represents traditional government contracting: building systems through contractors who bill taxpayers for every overrun.
Both approaches have delivered working hardware. But only one creates incentives to control spending.
How NASA Pays for the SLS Rocket
NASA pays Boeing and Northrop Grumman through cost-plus contracting: contractors submit invoices for their expenses, and NASA reimburses them all, plus a fixed fee that represents profit.
If Boeing discovers a technical problem requiring component redesign, they bill NASA for engineering hours, testing, and new production. The contractor’s profit stays the same whether the project runs $10 billion or $25 billion. If expenses exceed budget, taxpayers pay, not the contractor.
The system rewards spending more money, as NASA’s own Inspector General has documented: the longer development takes and the more resources it consumes, the more total money flows to the contractor’s organization.
SpaceX operates under the opposite arrangement. If SpaceX encounters unexpected problems that increase expenses, SpaceX absorbs those losses. If they solve problems efficiently, they keep more profit. Every dollar over budget comes directly out of SpaceX’s pocket.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, built under a fixed-price contract, has cost Boeing $2 billion in losses because technical problems drove spending far above what Boeing bid. The company reported a $523 million loss on Starliner in 2024 alone. That’s what it looks like when the contractor, not taxpayers, eats the overruns.
Political Origins of Each Program
These funding structures emerged from politics—specifically, the politics of aerospace jobs in Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.
The law was clear about its purpose: preserve aerospace jobs in the same states that had benefited from Shuttle production. Alabama, home to Marshall Flight Center where Boeing builds the SLS core stage. Texas, home to Johnson Center and its contractor ecosystem. Louisiana, where the Michoud Assembly Facility operates. Florida, where Kennedy Center handles all the flights.
These states are represented by powerful members of Congress who have consistently protected SLS funding.
The Commercial Crew Program emerged from different circumstances. Traditional contractors opposed this idea, as did many members of Congress. But Lori Garver made a compelling argument: American companies were losing expertise because NASA stopped building spacecraft, and a commercial domestic capability would create a sustainable American market.
The political coalition supporting each program has remained stable. SLS enjoys bipartisan protection from members representing aerospace states. Commercial Crew has support from members who see it as proof that market competition can deliver better results than traditional government contracting. Both programs have enough political support that Congress won’t cancel either one, which is why both are operating simultaneously despite their fundamentally incompatible philosophies.
Technical Problems and Contractor Accountability
The funding structures produce different outcomes when technical problems emerge. After the Artemis I uncrewed test flight in December 2022, NASA discovered the Orion heat shield experienced more erosion than expected during Earth reentry. The expense of investigating and resolving this issue flows through the cost-plus contract structure: NASA pays Boeing and Lockheed Martin for all the engineering work, testing, and modifications required.
When SpaceX’s Crew Dragon encountered technical issues during development, SpaceX paid to fix them. The company couldn’t bill NASA for the overruns. SpaceX had to fix problems fast to start making money, because SpaceX only gets paid when it delivers work that meets NASA’s requirements.
Boeing’s Starliner program illustrates what happens when fixed-price contracting meets serious technical problems. Boeing absorbed the expenses of investigating and fixing those problems. NASA has since modified Boeing’s contract to reduce the number of planned flights from six to three, with the possibility of transitioning to cargo-only operations.
Under cost-plus contracting, technical problems generate more billable work. Under fixed-price contracting, technical problems generate losses that threaten the contractor’s willingness to continue the program.
Production Capability and Schedule
There’s only one SLS rocket ready to fly. No backup. No alternative provider. No redundancy in the production pipeline. When problems emerge, the entire program gets delayed.
Since certification, SpaceX has maintained a regular cadence with multiple operational flights each year. The company routinely sends up Falcon 9 rockets from multiple facilities, demonstrating production and operational capability that the SLS program hasn’t matched.
The Crew-12 flight was affected by Artemis II’s schedule, pushing its liftoff to no earlier than the nineteenth if Artemis II goes up by the eleventh. But this represents coordination between programs, not a fundamental production constraint. SpaceX could send Crew-12 up earlier if the schedule permitted; the company has demonstrated the capability to conduct multiple Dragon flights within weeks of each other.
Sustainability and Cost Structure
The Artemis program’s stated goal is sustained lunar exploration leading eventually to Mars. Sustained exploration requires frequent flights. You can’t build a sustainable lunar presence with one or two flights per year at $2.5 billion each, not when NASA’s entire annual budget is $24.4 billion and must cover all science work, aeronautics research, and facility maintenance.
The Commercial Crew Program has demonstrated a different model. SpaceX sends multiple Crew Dragon flights per year at roughly $350 million each. The company’s business model doesn’t depend on a single government customer—SpaceX also flies commercial astronauts, cargo operations, and satellite deployments using the same basic hardware and infrastructure. Because SpaceX has multiple customers, it can maintain its crew transportation capability even if NASA’s budget fluctuates.
When a fixed-price program encounters serious technical problems, the contractor faces a genuine choice about whether to continue. Boeing has lost more than $2 billion on Starliner, and the company must decide whether investing more money to fix remaining problems makes business sense. This is how competition forces companies to control spending—but it also means that fixed-price contracting can lead to contractors walking away from programs that prove more difficult than anticipated.
Congressional Protection of SLS
Congress wrote laws that guarantee SLS keeps flying. Recent appropriations bills include provisions stating that SLS cannot be cancelled unless a commercial alternative demonstrates it can be as good as or better than SLS for deep crew operations.
This language effectively guarantees continued SLS operations regardless of cost, because the threshold for comparison is deliberately high. No private rocket company has a spacecraft approved to carry as much stuff to the Moon as SLS can. SpaceX’s Starship might eventually be approved, but it hasn’t finished the safety tests needed to carry astronauts. The statutory language ensures SLS continues flying—and consuming budget—for years regardless of whether cheaper alternatives become available.
The Trump administration’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget initially suggested cancelling SLS after Artemis III, arguing that commercial alternatives could take over heavy-lift responsibilities. Congress rejected that proposal and explicitly mandated at least four more SLS flights after Artemis II. This pattern—administration proposes cuts, Congress restores funding and adds more—has repeated for more than a decade.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman proposed a middle ground during his confirmation hearing: use the two existing SLS vehicles to fly Artemis II and III as planned, then transition to commercial heavy-lift providers like Starship for subsequent operations. Whether Congress accepts this compromise remains uncertain, but the political coalition supporting SLS has successfully resisted similar proposals before.
The Budget Collision Ahead
NASA can’t keep funding both programs forever at these spending levels. The SLS and Orion programs consume roughly 30 percent of NASA’s budget, leaving 70 percent to stretch across all science work, aeronautics research, Commercial Crew operations, and everything else NASA does. As SLS spending remains high and the program requires additional funding for lunar landers, habitats, and surface systems, something has to give.
Many experts say the government should only build things private companies can’t, and let companies handle everything else. By this logic, advanced lunar landers or Mars transfer vehicles might justify government investment, while routine crew transportation to low Earth orbit should be entirely commercial.
But cost-effectiveness isn’t the main reason Congress makes these decisions. Politics is. The contractors and their workers in Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida have successfully protected SLS funding for more than a decade through both Democratic and Republican administrations, through changing congressional control, through multiple budget crises. That coalition shows no signs of weakening.
The Commercial Crew Program has proven that fixed-price contracting can work for complex spaceflight systems, at least when companies are willing to absorb development risks in exchange for operational revenue. SpaceX has demonstrated that a commercial provider can deliver crew transportation more cheaply and more frequently than traditional government programs. Boeing’s Starliner struggles demonstrate that fixed-price contracting can also lead to massive contractor losses when development proves more difficult than anticipated.
The twin flights in February 2026 represent a unique moment: two fundamentally different approaches to government procurement operating simultaneously, sending crews from neighboring pads days apart. One approach prioritizes preserving aerospace jobs and maintaining government-owned capabilities regardless of cost. The other approach prioritizes cost efficiency and market competition, accepting that contractors might fail or walk away if programs become unprofitable.
Both approaches have delivered working hardware. Both have experienced delays and technical problems. But only one has demonstrated a sustainable cost structure for frequent operations. And only one enjoys explicit statutory protection from cancellation regardless of performance.
Whether the nation can afford to maintain both indefinitely, or whether budget constraints will eventually force a choice between preserving aerospace jobs in politically important states and building a program that can afford sustained exploration beyond Earth orbit, remains uncertain. The answer will determine not how America returns to the Moon, but what kind of program the nation can sustain for decades to come. Right now, Congress is funding both and avoiding the choice between them. The simultaneous flights in February 2026 make that tension impossible to ignore.
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