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Seeing how point-to-point is not their primary use case (or even secondary or tertiary), I don't see how this matters at all. I can see how maybe in the far fu

Seeing how point-to-point is not their primary use case (or even secondary or tertiary), I don't see how this matters at all. I can see how maybe in the far future, when Starship has been perfected, they could possibly try it. Obviously not downtown Zurich, but at a space port nearby.

modeless 4y ago
You're right. But it is interesting to ask the question, what is the use case? Starlink is the only commercial customer that can plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities right now. NASA moon missions are the only government customer so far. The government may start work on new programs that can use Starship's capabilities (e.g. fleets of bigger but cheaper space telescopes or interplanetary probes), but they haven't started yet and it will take decades for them to get going at their normal rates of progress. Elon wants to build a city on Mars but that isn't going to produce revenue for the foreseeable future and I don't think he can fund it personally despite being the richest person on Earth. Can Starlink and NASA moon missions alone pay back the cost of the Starship program? Will new commercial use cases be unlocked by Starship? Will the government commit to new programs that use Starship's unique capabilities? What will they be and how soon can they start producing revenue for SpaceX?
- starik36 4y ago
  A couple of things. I am not sure that they need a use case for Starship's "bigger" capabilities. If a Starship launch ends up being much cheaper than F9 (like Musk claims), then SpaceX will be using it to send payloads to orbit even for things that don't require a 1000 tons to orbit. That's a win right there. As for what payloads will utilize Starship to the max...NASA is already thinking about it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/spacex-engineer-says-nasa-should-plan-for-starships-significant-capability/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/spacex-engineer-says... Yes, it will take a while, but they'll get there eventually. Meanwhile, Starship can do the NASA missions to the moon and whatever F9 is doing today.

modeless 4y ago

You're right. But it is interesting to ask the question, what is the use case? Starlink is the only commercial customer that can plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities right now. NASA moon missions are the only government customer so far. The government may start work on new programs that can use Starship's capabilities (e.g. fleets of bigger but cheaper space telescopes or interplanetary probes), but they haven't started yet and it will take decades for them to get going at their normal rates of progress. Elon wants to build a city on Mars but that isn't going to produce revenue for the foreseeable future and I don't think he can fund it personally despite being the richest person on Earth. Can Starlink and NASA moon missions alone pay back the cost of the Starship program? Will new commercial use cases be unlocked by Starship? Will the government commit to new programs that use Starship's unique capabilities? What will they be and how soon can they start producing revenue for SpaceX?

starik36 4y ago
A couple of things. I am not sure that they need a use case for Starship's "bigger" capabilities. If a Starship launch ends up being much cheaper than F9 (like Musk claims), then SpaceX will be using it to send payloads to orbit even for things that don't require a 1000 tons to orbit. That's a win right there. As for what payloads will utilize Starship to the max...NASA is already thinking about it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/spacex-engineer-says-nasa-should-plan-for-starships-significant-capability/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/spacex-engineer-says... Yes, it will take a while, but they'll get there eventually. Meanwhile, Starship can do the NASA missions to the moon and whatever F9 is doing today.