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Well, not all of us have tens of billions of dollars to waste on a program like this.
That kind of argument is specious.

This launch was much better than the first one. But the reusability aspect of it looks like a failure. The engines on the booster failed to ignite after the flip maneuver. The second stage also failed late in flight. IMHO they need to start launching actual payloads with the rocket ASAP and work on the reusability aspect with time just like they did with the Falcon.

Overbom said:

What matters is results. People can argue and argue, but in the end of the day, SpaceX is the one which is almost reaching into orbit with its Spaceship program.

Do more, talk less. Talkers are billions among us, actual doers are a very tiny percentage

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That is how I feel. SpaceX is dominating with up mass into LEO with the Falcon 9/Heavy. I’ve seen some people say that most of the launches relate to Starlink, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they can easily put around ~50% of the total mass into orbit each year.

A reminder, SpaceX is running an extremely hardware rich testing/development program. They move fast and they break things. Rapid iteration and failing upwards is pretty much the norm for their modus operandi since the Grasshopper days. And it works - or to be more exact, it has worked so far.

Here is a six year old video from them on how to NOT land a booster..XD


We are going to see a lot more Starship explosions before this program/architecture produces something operational. It is going to happen though, betting against them has historically been a bad choice.

The only way to fail is to stop trying.

Yeah. But those Falcon launchers were paid for by the payloads. If they landed in one piece was just a bonus. That is not the case with these Starship launches. They aren't launching any payload.

There is only so many hugely expensive launches you can do before breaking the bank.

Also, this rocket his orders of magnitude more complex. And its market appeal in the current satellite market is kind of limited. Starlink and little else.

If China were to do a manned Mars mission, they should send 3 space rockets there instead of one giant rocket like starship there.
Starship, even if successful, is a very risky manned journey.. I felt like the material science barely handles it or almost at the breaking point. It is like putting all eggs in one basket.

Actually Starship is super inefficient for deep space and manned exploration (except for few days space tourism trips), it is just a future workhorse for heavy LEO lift. For manned mission to the Moon would need 10+ launches, and for Mars 30+!!

Making Lunar and Mars manned missions without a nuclear powered upper stage will always be extremely expensive and require lots of upwards mass. No one is going to redo Apollo again, it won't be a mission with just two astronauts and little cargo. Everyone wants to make lunar bases and things like that. And a mission to Mars even with little crew will require a lot more mass and time.

With conventional propellants the only viable way to do those missions economically is with a reusable vehicle. Be it Starship or some other.

Given SpaceX's capabilities they could try making a solar-electric upper stage at least for cargo for the long distance missions.

China has pebble bed modular nuclear reactor technology which could be applied to a nuclear-thermal upper stage if they wanted to.

This youtuber observed something about Starship launch.


It seems that the explosion of booster happened in the inter-stage (between fuel tank and oxygen tank) after "leakage" or "explosion" at the engine section.

I won't make any conclusion from this, but think it worth to record for future reference.

Do you need a super heavy carrier? I believe that for flights to the Moon and Mars, it is possible to assemble a starship in orbit and deliver a payload to it by launching heavy rockets.

It is possible to assemble the mission in orbit. But this will require two launch sites and multiple rockets.
I also think this is economically more feasible than the super heavy launchers. Especially if you use reusable rockets.