I didn’t say it wouldn’t. Maybe for Mars.

“Any future manned Moon program will require it!”

Nope. Not according to studies from NASA itself, industry and academia.

Even if such a large heavy-lift rocket were required, one with more payload capacity than SLS block 2 will probably be available sometime around the middle of the next decade. Sooner and cheaper.

“The Commercial Spacers all appear to have NO interest in getting astronauts back to the Moon, and most are quite phobic to the idea.”

B.S., ever heard of Golden Spike? They or others will be customers for SpaceX’s lunar hardware. Did you just totally ignore what I told you about SpaceX’s plans for trying out this hardware with actual flights to the Moon?

“The Moon will need to be included in the interplanetary trek equation, sooner or later—–and much better sooner!”

On that point we agree. Be it won’t be done in a way you like.
This is the real problem, Chris. You SLS huggers don’t care how long your pet rocket gets worked on — as long as you see it being worked on you can convince yourself that it is actually going to be of use. As I said, it appears that you all would rather the U.S. not go anywhere beyond LEO if you can’t have your precious SLS. You care more for it than you do your country’s future in space. I think we might see one or two flights of the low end block 1 SLS around the time private space really gets started toward the Moon. But once those lunar flights start, that’s the beginning of the end for SLS.

History will be the judge in the long run. I am not going to discuss this any further with you. I thought maybe with the changes happening now that you might become a bit more flexible, but it is impossible to talk someone out of their religion.

That’s a crock of guano!! Ares 5 totally could’ve made a year 2020 deadline, IF IT HAD BEEN FUNDED in a timely & correct manner. Since the Altair lander & the earth departure stage were the prime cargo components, for which it was being designed for, I see NO reason why both Altair & the EDS couldn’t have in turn, made a hypothetically revised deadline of 2025, to carry out an actual manned mission——-presumably a low lunar orbit test flight, like Apollo 10.

The Commercial Spacers sure relish the defeatist talk, when it comes to what timescale Project Constellation could’ve been brought on line! What about how freaking long it’s taking them just to launch a single manned capsule into mere LEO?! What about their snail-pace work at developing a module with a life-support machine that could withstand a 500-day trek to Mars & back——AND a re-entry heat sheild apparatus, to survive the mega-high speed planetfall to Earth?! Oh yeah, ha ha ha, Constellation would not have been built until the 2030’s, BUT Inspiration Mars either 2018 OR 2021 looks to be a sure-done conclusion, certain of deadline-meeting success!?!?!

The Commercial Spacers all appear to have NO interest in getting astronauts back to the Moon, and most are quite phobic to the idea. Their ambitions in space go NO higher than the ISS, or to another new ISS-type facility. Naturally, they have NO need for Heavy Lift, in their mode of thinking. Sure, they harbor larger-than-life ideas of human Mars travel, but they’re quite content with the thought that this audacious goal can be figured out by their entrepreneurial can-do spirit, PLUS the sum of the technologies developed on the ISS in LEO. But they’re very wrong! The Moon will need to be included in the interplanetary trek equation, sooner or later—–and much better sooner!

Wholesale fiction—–a deliberate revisal of future projections, so that you could SEEM to have a viable argument!! Look, Constellation’s sole technical/technological problem was that it was NOT adequately funded. If the Project had been funded in a timely manner, its flight elements certainly could’ve been built—–within the 2010’s! If any unexpected delays came up, it would’ve been nothing as off the wall, as you Commercial Space proponents suggest.
Project Apollo was put together within a ten year period, and included diverse mission elements as well: the multi-stage heavy-lift rocket; the main crew vehicle, which served as lunar transport & orbiter; the lunar landing module. All this flimsily-based talk about Constellation taking till 2028 or 2035 to accomplish, merely visualizes what you space cowboys want to forsee: it serves to make the Lunar Return SEEM like a pipe-dream.
If JKF & LBJ had similarly failed to implement Apollo, just like GWB did with Constellation, then indeed it would’ve resulted in a defeatist, self-fulfilling prophesy, just the same. Apollo 7 would NOT have flown until 1978, and Apollo 11, or an equivalent flight, would NOT have made the premiere Moon landing until 1985!