Like imagine how much better the James web could have been with such a large and cheap launch vehicle.

That's not how this works. The JWST was limited by the size of its faring, but increasing the size of the faring doesn't mean they'd ship a less complex telescope with the same functionality; they'd ship an equally-complex telescope with more functionality. Better for science, yes, but that doesn't translate to more expenditure that could be captured by the launch company. And that still relies on a government that gives a damn about funding science, which is not not the direction that the US is heading in.

	▲	fastball 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> that doesn't translate to more expenditure that could be captured by the launch company. Of course it does. With Starship, SpaceX could've charged NASA/ESA more to launch a bigger JWST than the cost to launch with Ariane 5, with huge profit margins. On top of that, with a much larger fairing, you could almost certainly simplify the telescope and increase capability. A significant part of the JWST's complexity is the unfolding sequence, which could be simplified with a fairing that is more than double (triple? quadruple?) the volume.