The cost to orbit is the current limiter for a mars mission because no one will invest in solving all the other challenges until cost to orbit is solved. It's a

The cost to orbit is the current limiter for a mars mission because no one will invest in solving all the other challenges until cost to orbit is solved. It's also a lot easier to solve the problems you raised when cost to orbit is lowered. Early variants of starship will not be human rated. That will only happen once Starship has a proven track record. The is also no reason a human rated starship variant could not be built using the same safety systems seen with the dragon capsule. It sounds like you are having trouble seeing merit in starship. Falcon 9, whilst great, is not going to the end of launch system development. SpaceX believes Starship will bring significant improvements/benefits. This process is no different to how Automobiles and aircraft have seen improvements to their capabilities over the years.