SpaceX is truly one of the most impressive companies of our time.
Completely revolutionised the space industry and I wish them the best. Excited for this and glad that it has increased people’s interest and love of science and engineering.
The starship is glorious. I love the Saturn V and have for years but this thing has a similar though different beauty to it. Really want to see one fly. Seen a falcon 9 and it was honestly magical, even got the jellyfish effect, never experienced anything like it. But a Saturn V/ starship must be next level.
The Starship concept of operations requires 11 launches for each mission to the moon - one for the vehicle, another 10 to refuel it once it get into earth orbit. Each of these missions have to autonomously dock and perform a cryogenic fuel transfer.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, has shown an operationally-viable in-space cryo transfer. Even doing it on Earth is a fussy thing - cryo transfer was behind two of the Artemis I scrubs, and NASA’s been doing it since Apollo.
Getting one Starship into orbit is an interesting milestone but it’s a long way from what they promised the world they could do… and the clock is ticking.
Please Elon, sit on the top.