>>13360696You couldn't be more wrong.
What's NASA's focus nowadays, huh? It's the Moon, but not just touch & ago like in the 70s, it's about continuous presence, setting up bases there, building space stations. To even go there you need Super Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles and guess what, currently USA has only one vehicle of that kind, Falcon Heavy by SpaceX. That's why they've chosen it to launch not one but two Gateway modules in one flight. It's also Falcon Heavy that will supply the station with Dragon XL module. Two more vehicles are currently in production, SLS and Starship. The former is literally a jobs program, there were no attempts to make it competitive and its only mission so far are crewed flights to Gateway station and back. It was supposed to launch Europa Clipper but because of solid rocket booster that are so fucking shaky, they dumped it and announced that they'll choose a commercial launch vehicle. Meanwhile, Starship is cheaper, more powerful and most importantly, reusable. Its lander version is a perfect workhorse for a growing Moon colony.
I could say the same about HLS program. Both National Team and Dynetics proposed bloated designs that had no future. And again, we have a SpaceX design that is cheaper, more powerful and reusable.
