Interesting, this was almost word-for-word how I was explaining it to a non-space-nerd friend of mine.

I'm still convinced that this theory, in a sort of occams razor way, is the most likely to be true.

If SLS was just "a jobs program", then what is the government's motivation for "a jobs program"? It keeps unemployment lower? Is that true though? If the SLS didn't exist, the engineers would just move on...no?

To me, it seems clear that it is just a knowledge preservation program; a way to keep STEM, rocket science and engineering in America, in-house.

I'm currently based in the UK, and lord knows how messed up our manufacturing sector is today because it got all exported to the rest of the world, because the government didn't inveat and ensure that we maintained a sizable manufacturing worker force. US is just doind what every other government is trying to do nowadays - keep valauble (military, industrial, etc.) skills in-house.