Although John stated that he would go all out to carry out the God of War Ares program, it did not mean that the Artemis program would be terminated.
On the contrary, the Artemis program would also build a base on the Moon and have subsequent multiple landing missions to maintain a constant astronaut presence.
To carry out Mars exploration while maintaining a high frequency of Moon missions undoubtedly required a considerable number of giant rocket launches, and they had to be cheaper.
The SLS, with a launch price exceeding 4 billion US dollars, definitely wouldn't work, not to mention the current Block1 version, even the 140-ton capacity Block2 wouldn't suffice, as just these giant rockets would deplete the entire budget.
In this situation, Robert reorganized the bidding, demanding a new rocket capable of replacing the SLS, and the cost had to align with the publicly announced launch price of the New Yuan-2A by XAP: 500 million US dollars.
