Current estimates on the costs for launching with the heavy rockets America has to work with are:

Space X Starship – $67m per launch
Blue Origin New Glenn – $68m per launch
United Space Alliance SLS – $2.5b per launch

Note, New Glenn is sitting on the launchpad awaiting its first launch.

These estimated costs will certainly change over time, but it’s clear that the reusability of Starship and New Glenn make SLS an obsolete joke. There is no doubt based on the past that SLS will become even more bloated and costly and there is little hope of having a sustainable manned spaced exploration program if there are costs in the multi-billions per launch.

NASA’s incoming administrator Issacman has said SLS is wasteful and “barely tolerable”. I agree on the wasteful and disagree on the tolerable. Reduced launch costs by a factor of over 30 using Starship and New Glenn will lead to a robust human space program. It’s time for the old, inefficient non-reusable model of rockets to be swept aside and for the newer, reusable heavy launch systems to replace it permanently.