Comment by tsimionescu
3 days ago
Is it actually capable of carrying a payload? Have they confirmed that? The fuel graphs they show during launcheshave always shown the ship being full on launch, empty by the end, it's not clear to me how they would carry cargo in addition to what they're showing now.
All those reentry tiles, reentry & burn back fuel, and header tanks add up to a lot of launch weight that wouldn't be needed in an expendable mission profile.
Sure, but that's not what this is about. The quoted capacity of Starship is supposed to be for a fully rapidly reusable Starship
So the question remains: is the current Starship design capable of carrying a commercial payload to at least LEO, and then come back safely down as they demonstrated?
I don't see how that is relevant? Surely you'd be comparing against other launch vehicles, which are all expendable.