SLS is regenerating 1960s capabilities that took $250 billion to build and run the first time. So far SLS has spent about $30 billion. It is expensive in that each launch is $2 billion so pretty bad, but it also works and won't require us to hope that Starship will definitely be fixed at some point.
Starship has been much cheaper to develop and launch because of SpaceX's significantly less conservative approach to R&D, but it doesn't work yet. We should maintain SLS until SpaceX either gets Starship fully developed or it falls apart.
Starship is risky and if we want Space to be a "critical" capability of America, then we shouldn't be putting all our eggs in the SpaceX basket, even if it is significantly more expensive.
How cheap do you think buying Starship services will be when they are LITERALLY the only option for anyone anywhere?
Starship has been much cheaper to develop and launch because of SpaceX's significantly less conservative approach to R&D, but it doesn't work yet. We should maintain SLS until SpaceX either gets Starship fully developed or it falls apart.
Starship is risky and if we want Space to be a "critical" capability of America, then we shouldn't be putting all our eggs in the SpaceX basket, even if it is significantly more expensive.
How cheap do you think buying Starship services will be when they are LITERALLY the only option for anyone anywhere?