Starship, as it is right now, is already a better rocket than SLS. It can already carry more mass and be cheaper (even fully expended) than the SLS’s 4 billion cost per launch.

It will get better. Falcon 9 didn’t land the first time either, but now it has successfully landed more consecutive times than any other rocket has flown.

There’s nothing wrong with saying this is a test. This is only a test, and we don’t expect it to be perfect yet. Each time they learn from the data. And SpaceX hasn’t repeated the same mistake twice.