Not to mention you’re comparing apples to oranges. I suppose a decade from now after NASA has done all the work to lay the foundation when Musk comes in and brags about how much cheaper his version is we’ll see a similar narrative.
This decision was entirely due to doctrine. STS was designed as a mostly reusable product and failed costs-wise, so the government basically forced NASA to go with something expendable instead. It is genuinely impressive that SpaceX proved that reusable launch vehicles can be made cost-effective, but it's nowhere near the kind of massive quantum leap that SpaceX's legion of hardcore followers seems to be convinced it is. Everything on a Falcon or a Dragon is public domain 60s technology besides the code and guidance hardware (based on COTS components). The same is likely be true of Starship, which explains a lot of the significant teething issues it has suffered over the past several flight tests.
However it is a question what SLS will do when they run out of these engines that's cost is in the same ballpark per piece as a full Falcon heavy. Or something like that. And those are just the engines. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-stag...
> As of 2019, only three full-flow staged combustion rocket engines had ever progressed sufficiently to be tested on test stands; the Soviet Energomash RD-270 project in the 1960s, the US government-funded Aerojet Rocketdyne Integrated powerhead demonstration project in the mid-2000s,[6] and SpaceX's flight capable Raptor engine first test-fired in February 2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staged_combustion_cycle
If you want to learn more
What a nice way to belittle the enormous significance of their achievements.
Reliability, total mass to LEO/GEO/TLI/Whatever, and $/kg in each of these cases, coupled with an amazing launch cadence, are where you can see the magnitude of the progress they've enabled. Whether you do it with expendable or reusable vehicles, burning RP-1, methane or a custom mixture of concentrated Jack Daniels and dog hair, doesn't really matter. They do it reliably, often and amazingly cheaply. SLS does none of that, and neither do any of the other launch systems.
Also if you value their improvements so little over "public domain 60s technology", how come nobody else did it in 50 years?
Come on, Elon is immensely questionable, but SpaceX is awesome (thanks in no small part to Gwynne Shotwell!) and SLS is... not, but at least it finally launched and didn't even blow up, so let's celebrate that instead of turning this into an opportunity to disparage them.
Bare-skin stainless steel rockets?
I will personally be surprised if SLS still exists in a decade.
Just remember I am saying “if Starship development goes according to plan” which I think is reasonably likely but of course not guaranteed.
And this comparison always comes up in the context of "evil inefficient gubmint stealing our tax dollars versus awesome private corporation showing how it should be done".
Just to be perfectly clear, are you saying SLS development also results in a lot of engineering knowledge? If so can you highlight what that knowledge would be -- propulsion, material, efficiency, avionics, manufacturing?
As far as government spending, I’m far from a free market advocate. But I would rather see the government spend money effectively. If SLS will cost, say, ten billion dollars over the next decade to complete three more flights, I’d rather see the government buy $1B in services from SpaceX to ensure they finish development of Starship, securing rides on a rocket which is 1/30th the launch costs, and then spend the other $9 billion on social housing programs to alleviate homelessness in the country.
My point is not that I believe free markets will magically solve any problem we can imagine, but that a specific solution to the problem of heavy lift space vehicles that shows real promise is already nearly complete. I simply believe it would be a better use of funds to invest in that system than to continue to burn money on SLS. And the government understands this as it has awarded some money to SpaceX for moon missions with Starship. So they’re finding the much cheaper private option and the very expensive NASA option. And I just think that’s a poor use of funds given what each project promises.
The cost and the tendency of its launch being scrubbed makes it a risk for any time sensitive mission, as shown by NASA decision to switch Europa Clipper to Falcon Heavy:
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/325106-europa-clipper-di...