I find myself excited about starship for other reasons. It seems like there is a large range of outcomes for the starship development program—maybe the difficul

I find myself excited about starship for other reasons. It seems like there is a large range of outcomes for the starship development program—maybe the difficulty of having an effective, durable, and serviceable heat shield really will kill the fully-and-rapidly-reusable goal. Even in that case, though, a stripped-down stainless steel upper stage could reduce the costs of access to Earth orbit such that space-based solar power or sunshades to buy us time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions become feasible, even if the dreams of humans in space/on the moon and Mars colonization don’t pan out (I’m skeptical of the value of those human space presence goals anyways). Edit: I have no idea if the more modest capabilities of starship/super heavy justify the current valuation, but they at least seem like they would be useful capabilities to maintain.