this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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At least to some extend it is a subsidy program to prop up or maintain a national launch fleet against stiff commercial competition (SpaceX) and to renew the local expertise to keep the ageing fleet of ICBMs going. The moon was and is a convenient excuse to waste tax money on this. Japan is one of the cases of ramping up a thinly veiled threat of nuke delivery capacity without officially saying so.
I dunno about this take in this case. Most of the US CLPS landers are launching on Falcons. Literally all but 1 so far. PPE/HALO will launch on a Falcon Heavy. Gateway Logistics will launch on Falcons. The HLS options will launch on Starship and New Glenn. SLS will never fly a commercial flight, and Northrop is already getting big ICBM contracts.