Starship has twice the thrust of SLS. It could do everything SLS or Saturn 5 can. It just chooses not to because it chooses to be fully reusable. If you stuck a third stage, Orion and an Apollo CM style lander on top of Starship you could do everything in a single launch Saturn 5 style. That's something SLS can't do because Orion is much heavier than Apollo was. But Starship could. It'd have to run expendable.
The difference is that Starship is getting $3B from NASA vs the $40B that SLS got. NASA could get a single launch moon mission using Starship, but they'd have to pay SpaceX more than $3B to get it.
> SLS can launch the manned element directly into a Lunar injection orbit. It doesn't require any refueling to get anywhere. It also doesn't need a fuel tank at the destination to allow a lander to return home.
SLS doesn't carry the lander nor the fuel for the lander. So yes, it does need something else to get the lander's fuel to the destination.
The difference is that Starship is getting $3B from NASA vs the $40B that SLS got. NASA could get a single launch moon mission using Starship, but they'd have to pay SpaceX more than $3B to get it.
> SLS can launch the manned element directly into a Lunar injection orbit. It doesn't require any refueling to get anywhere. It also doesn't need a fuel tank at the destination to allow a lander to return home.
SLS doesn't carry the lander nor the fuel for the lander. So yes, it does need something else to get the lander's fuel to the destination.