ahem SpaceX.

No Musk fan, but that company has been doing a real bang-up (literally) job of developing affordable launch systems.

I think the SLS is a disaster, and I suspect is very much in DOGE's crosshairs.

As always, "it depends" is really where the truth lies. There doesn't seem to be anyone that is "always right," or "always wrong."

It's the extremists that believe that there is "always right/wrong," that cause the pain.

That’s a good one and that should be a case study: https://www.forbes.com/2003/02/03/cx_ah_0203space.html

Privatization was well under way, but the incumbents were (and still are) awful.

NASA later took a risk with SpaceX, fostered competition, and it paid off enormously.

But this worked out because there was a market and demand (private sector satellites).

Is that the same thing though?

Lots of private for-profit cooks involved in SLS. That's the other issue common with privatization: way too easy to blame someone else/each other in the chain of subcontractors.

It will be interesting to see what happens with SLS. I guarantee that Musk wants it fed into the shredder, but lots of senators and congresscritters rely on its pork.