[NorthMountain]

Don’t be ignorant. The only thing in common between the Mercury Atlas and the Atlas V is the name.

[AndyJackson]

Moreover, the fundamentals of rocket technology have not changed a lot. It's a great big tank of fuel and a tank of oxidizer with turbo pumps to mix them together at very high speed. Once you get to the point that most of the weight is fuel and payload, not much more you can do.

Sure guidance and control have improved immensely.

[Waverunner]

That’s true, but they us the Russian RD-180 for 1st stage boost,so it’s not even US technology lifting it off the pad.
Once again, what’s NASA done with it’s mandate to develop space flight technology... Out sourced it.. Blue Origin will have a large boost engine available in a few years.. 550,000 lbs of thrust or so, or about 1/3 of a Saturn F1 engine, which NASA lost the plans to. Sorry I showed my ignorance, that of a former Pratt engineer in the experimental airfoils group, oh and BTW our airfoils weren’t wings but compressor and turbine blades and vanes used for everything up to the Improved shuttle engines.