>I don't know why this topic polarizes people to such an extreme degree. A number of reasons, actually. - Because the entire idea of "the Earth is fucked, so

>I don't know why this topic polarizes people to such an extreme degree. A number of reasons, actually. - Because the entire idea of "the Earth is fucked, so let's go set up camp on Mars" is a train of thought that's only applicable to the ultra-rich, and in the current economic environment that's (pretty understandably) an unpopular idea. - Because after Starship's failed attempt at landing and highly-destructive launch earlier this year, people who care about the nearby wildlife refuge at Boca Chica are understandably not thrilled about continued ops there. - Because the man behind SpaceX -- whose past achievements are admittedly impressive, at least in the spaceflight industry -- is increasingly associated with deceptive marketing, poor design choices, and incompetent product management, and when a corporation like SpaceX relies on significant funding from taxpayers that's a troubling combination. - Personally, for me, coming from startups, "move fast and break things" scales terribly in terms of (for lack of a better word) social responsibility, and with the company's stated ambitions, I don't see this ending well. SpaceX does a lot of cool shit, but let's not pretend like they're advancing the state of human existence here. They're a commercial entity, even if not publicly traded, but with Musk at the helm that feels like the tradeoff between being purely profit-driven vs having later-years Howard Hughes behind the wheel. Anyway, it's pretty disingenuous to call Starship in particular "the most capable and sophisticated rocket ever built." So far it's capable of doing a significantly suborbital hop and failing to land. You could argue that it's failed at the one thing a spacefaring vessel should, by definition, not fail at. I do trust in the FAA's judgement here, but I hope they work closely with Fish & Wildlife. The effects of climate change are increasingly endangering wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, and having chunks of concrete the size of a living room flying into the water isn't helping.