Comment by mavhc
2 days ago
Going to Mars takes about the same delta-v as the moon.
SpaceX launches 80% of the world's mass to orbit, they probably know what they're doing.
Starship is an extremely hard problem, and their aim is to reduce cost of getting mass to orbit by another 10x after Falcon 9 did the same.
Falcon 9 needs about 4% of fuel to land on a ship, 14% to return to launchpad
Why would you say they've had 100% failure rate? What did you think the reason was to launch and how did it fail?
Surely the could put a traditional upper stage on Super Heavy and just go directly to the moon, no? I’m not sure what the obsession with second stage reuse is, because you lose almost all your margin.
I'm not sure what the obsession with airplane reuse is. Why not just build a new one for each flight?
You don’t gain additional margin throwing away an airplane. Reuse is a lovely idea but the rocket equation is a harsh mistress.
Space X cares way more about reusability than the moon, they're not actually in a race to the moon. Step 1: build the best general solution. Step 2: do everything