Also: SLS is a hedge against eg. SpaceX or Blue Origin (in some time hopefully) or any other commercial heavy lift launcher failing. SLS, in various incarnatio

Also: SLS is a hedge against eg. SpaceX or Blue Origin (in some time hopefully) or any other commercial heavy lift launcher failing. SLS, in various incarnations, has been in the works longer than those companies exist and certainly longer than SpaceX actually living up to it's promises. Now that they do with Falcon, and Falcon Heavy and (maybe) are about to with Starship, it seems outdated of course. However, changing the program again (to eg. make SLS reusable) would only make things worse. It's also not a given that Starship will work. I totally expect and hope so, but it's not a given. Further, it's not that the money has been burnt, it has mostly been spent in the US, right? Just redistributed :-) . Could also have pissed it away in the army. Of course some other good have been done with it too, to be fair. Alas, not my taxpayer money for the largest bit: as a ESA member state citizen, I only paid a fraction of the ESA supplied module.