Yet another sign that China is going to beat us in the modern race to the moon.

Maybe, but this seems like it's coming from the right place at least.

SLS has always been the most industry desirable aerospace pork/waste project. The Exploration Upper Stage (the canceled one from this article) was just another example of that.

Other examples include:

• Restarting RS-25 rocket engine production (under the E variant) by Aerodyne
• BOLE to create new SRBs allowing Northrop to recovery its money invested in the failed OmegA rocket
• Building a second Mobile Launcher Platform from Bechtel for a rocket we've only launched once 4 years ago.

Before any of the above was done we had everything to launch 4 SLS rockets. If we only end up ever launching a total of 4 SLS rockets 100% of the above is complete waste which will serve zero purpose.

These are just the more recent pork examples in a long line stretching back to Orion, and Constellation development.

yep