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While technologies have matured, the types of beakthroughs we are discussing are the ones that reduce cost from $10000 per pound to orbit to $1000 per pound to orbit. And experience bears out that we aren't there yet.

Which breakthroughs might those be? Rocket engines exist that can be fired again and again. A more robust thermal protection system is hardly unobtainable. Tanks are no problem. Structure is only a challenge if you are shooting for SSTO mass fraction and plenty of engineers think even that is doable; and if you are wanting to be a pessimist, staging is a mature technology. Flight control systems are a known problem that has been solved again and again.

As far as experience, what experience? The last manned launcher developed was the shuttle; Its development was driven by a political situation that precluded a serious effort at cost reduction.

If your correct, then why is cost effective success so elusive? I don't think it is as simple as you have put it. I also have said that these technlogies are there, but you have to be willing to buck up to their actual costs, something we've not been able to stomach as a gov/nation (I would blame politicians again here).

I am not arguing that it can't be done, I'm saying that to satisfy the political/cost aspects of accomplishing this, we continually set ourselves up for failure by demanding unrealistic capability at a fraction of the cost. And then we throw in a zero tolerance for failure to hold to that underfunded budget. If we cut welfare by 12 billion and used that funding to double the space budget, and then let engineers and cost managers work out what is doable/affordable, we would have a new system up and running in 6-8 years.

What weve learned from the 'faster, better, cheaper' era is that you can only get two out of three. Shooting for three out of three leads to failure.