[nickik]

I remember when people said that about Falcon Heavy and people were defending SLS by saying 'Falcon Heavy is not real, SLS is real and exists'. 2017 was a simpler time.

You don't need SLS for a moon program, Starship or not. Its a major waste of money and only needed because the whole architecture was designed to need it. It makes neither economic, nor infrastructural sense considering the rest of the infrastructure and American space industry.

Starship will very likely fly, even at 100x over its target price, its a bargain. Putting in 30+ billion into a project, even if we assume complete 100% success from now on, will not succeed in the mission 'going to the moon and staying'. At a same-time invest basically 0 in a system that could literally revolutionize human space travel, is beyond nonsensical.

I would bet a fair amount of money on Starship transporting humans before SLS. SLS Core stage just spent almost a year preparing for a single static fire test, and has already fallen behind again.