An excellent example of how SLS is harming space exploration is in the delay of the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) project. In the past, CCDev received less funding than needed to remain on schedule and SLS received more. CCDev could have been flying by now, even had there been some delays in development. Overall CCDev expenditures would have been less and we would not now be paying Russia to get us to the ISS — money that could also have been put to better use elsewhere.

SLS and LOP-G are projects without missions. Had their designers been given missions to fulfill, such as return to the Moon, reach Mars, or both, then they could have designed SLS and LOP-G to match. It is like buying a car then deciding what you want to do with it. Did you buy a large pickup truck but will mostly drive it to work, where parking spaces are small? Or maybe you really needed a family car for long trips to the grandparents.

So now it looks like we are spending too much money for rockets that launch at a low cadence, meanwhile there are better rockets under development that can launch at a more rapid cadence at far lower cost. Yet Congress has us committed to spending valuable resources on a low-usefulness rocket rather than on the goals most people want to see accomplished.

Well done Congress.

IIRC, the SLS is only needed to deliver segments of the station that don’t use Orion as propulsion.

COTS, Commercial Cargo, & Commercial Crew continued despite spending on SLS, Orion, & ISS.

Yup, we have a dual track system and it is probably the best we can get. The commercial side isn’t suffering for funding either, so that’s good. But the LOP-G is also supposed to utilize a COTS like approach to how it is built, who knows how that will look? And the new lunar prospecting will also use a COTS like approach for rovers and such. It will be interesting to see how these companies use their landers for commerce as well as the infrastructure used to support them.