At $4 Billion per launch, you could buy 40 SpaceX Falcon9 missions, assuming no discount for volume and using only “virgin” launchers.
And Armetis still requires two SpaceX Starship launches for landing on the moon. Starship has more than enough lifting capability to do the whole mission, without the SLS/Armetis stack. Probably will be safer, those Thiokol roman candles do not exactly have either a great record or a really “green” exhaust. And the total cost of the Starship landers is just over $2.1 Billion.
I’m going to guess that the first human to get to the moon this century may indeed ride the entire way on a Starship. Could be a “test” of the system, and Elon will make the first “tweet” from the surface of another “planet.”
Yes, SLS provides lots of jobs to lots of people in lots of states, of the tech is not exactly modern, it’s all Space Shuttle hardware repurposed, so why invest on tech that’s older than most of the people who will be flying it?
If part of the goal is to advance the state of the art, I’m wondering where the SLS is going to make a worthwhile contribution?