Cook more food with the same amount of money.
Government as anchor tenant using rockets (metaphors must die) that are supported by multiple customers. There was one customer for Shuttle, one for Ares, one for SLS. That is insanity. More launches mean lower average cost as fixed costs are spread over a larger base - even if it is all government launches.
We build a sustainable industry. Nothing Shuttle-derived is sustainable because no one else wants to use it. And don't cite the DOD and SMD PR junk about flying on SLS. It's not real.
This is the same argument that's been going on since ESAS. I'll have it again, but I don't see why.
But if it is "government food", you can only cook so much. You still haven't addressed the central question that it seems you believe nobody can do anything without the government. So again, if government is buying "commercial" for what it can, what about what it can't? Advanced systems and spacecraft for beyond LEO missions? Aren't you right back to the "oven"? It's still the same people afterall, so what has changed if you have no faith in them and they are your co-workers?
You know shuttle was not just a rocket. You probably know that there could have been more than one customer too. In theory, it could be the same for SLS and I refuse to just cry that it is impossible and stupid to think otherwise (though I readily acknowledge, those few customers would be few for something that is just a large rocket)
Where government has completely failed, and you did not address, is to not define a strategy and mission scopes. Without that, screaming one tactical solution is absolutely better than the other is largely meaningless. Because depending on said scopes and mission requirements I can see the possibility that a HLV could be useful in the mix and lower the total integrated mission costs. Just because there is an HLV does not have to preclude the use of other rockets, that exist today, for certain launches when and where it makes sense.
If all that held out to be true, which again we do not know, why not build it out of things we have flown for some time and understand and therefore protect "the market" where it exists now so one company that provides complete launch vehicles is not subsidized over another for something derived from one of theirs.
Without any of the above that I was talking about, you have to admit that your post is also just buzzwords. They sound good, and I don't have some ideological slant that prevents me from agreeing and accepting the above (unlike the "other side") it just simply cannot be answered definitively.
Again, another failure of the government thus far.
