I feel like this is a subtle jab pretty much nobody outside of serious aerospace enthusiasts is going to get. For those who don't know, right now there's sort of a competition for the 'next big thing' in rockets. Congress/Boeing/Lockheed have been working on the SLS or Space Launch System since 2011. It was expected to launch in 2016. It had its first trial launch in 2022, and is tens of billions of dollars over budget.
It's also expected to cost billions of dollars per launch. Its more common nickname is the Senate Launch System, since it's largely just a really big pork project. It's already not especially competitive against the Falcon Heavy, and is being built at the same time SpaceX Starship is also being built. That project began in 2017, is being completely privately funded, and expected to revolutionize spaceflight once again - with costs potentially as low as $1 million per launch.
Anyhow, the SLS is reusing a bunch of old technology from the Space Shuttle. This includes the RS-25 engines...
The SLS is mediocre but there are a few things to keep in mind:
1) NASA needs to keep in house rocketry expertise and the US government cannot rely on private companies 100% just for like NatSec reasons.
2) If NASA doesn't structure programs as pork barrel projects that make it difficult for small time senators to kill, they will constantly be nickle and dimed and have their budget slashed until their entire job is just to make memorabilia to sell.
3) Elon is not trustworthy. Our country should not rely on him. Starship hasn't launched yet, while SLS has now. I am excited for starship to launch, hopefully soon, but it's still not a functional rocket.
1) The US government does rely on private companies 100%, SLS is built by Boeing, a private company. Being a private American company has very little issue when it comes to national security, just means you have them meet various requirements (eg only allowing US persons to work there and security clearance requirements).
2) Unfortunate that our system is so corrupt, but agreed. Fortunately there is also the Artemis approach of tying in so many international partners that it becomes a matter of national prestige.
3) I suggest looking up "The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It's on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.".
> NASA needs to keep in house rocketry expertise and the US government cannot rely on private companies 100% just for like NatSec reasons
Do they? Most national security work in space is under NRO and USSF, not NASA; neither of them build their own rockets but instead rely on commercial vendors.
The Army doesn't build its own rifles or tanks, the Air Force doesn't build their own fighters and bombers, and the Navy doesn't build their own ships. Operations is different from designing equipment; the only time it makes sense for the same organization to do both is when that organization is so far out on the cutting edge of innovation that they have to do both. (Ironically it's SpaceX that is in this position with regard to Starlink.)
NASA was in this position during the Apollo era. They aren't in this position anymore. It should have been a hint as early as the Shuttle era when they went and designed the Shuttle as (among other things) a satellite launch platform, only for commercial vendors to provide unmanned rockets as satellite launch platforms instead. As it stands now, NASA carries out a lot of scientific missions that don't have an immediate commercial application, which is a good thing for them to do but doesn't require them to design their own rockets.
Furthermore, it's not even fair to describe SLS as "in-house", since it's built by Boeing and Boeing is bidding the system for their own commercial contracts now. At that point it's just a question of which private company the government can rely on.
It's also expected to cost billions of dollars per launch. Its more common nickname is the Senate Launch System, since it's largely just a really big pork project. It's already not especially competitive against the Falcon Heavy, and is being built at the same time SpaceX Starship is also being built. That project began in 2017, is being completely privately funded, and expected to revolutionize spaceflight once again - with costs potentially as low as $1 million per launch.
Anyhow, the SLS is reusing a bunch of old technology from the Space Shuttle. This includes the RS-25 engines...
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System