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> The question is whether those markets are not already adequately served by Falcon 9 What does that even mean? Almost every single Falcon 9 customer will pref
by fastball 6mo ago
> The question is whether those markets are not already adequately served by Falcon 9
What does that even mean? Almost every single Falcon 9 customer will prefer launching on Starship if/when it is available, because the cost will be much lower. A very small segment who have payloads that are exactly Falcon 9 sized and want a very particular orbit might still be better served by F9, but maybe not.
Beyond that, much lower cost unlocks previously untenable opportunities that you have not sufficiently imagined, as stated earlier.
- ben_w 6mo agoIt may not even be cheaper when it works; upper stage reuse still isn't there. (I'd like it to be, but until it is, it isn't).
- fastball 6mo agoThe argument was "why do you even need Starship?", not "will it be fully re-usable at the end of the day?"
- ben_w 6mo ago> Almost every single Falcon 9 customer will prefer launching on Starship if/when it is available, because the cost will be much lower Cost reduction depends on it being fully reusable.
- fastball 6mo agoNot actually sure that is true. Entirely possible that just by re-using Superheavy and expending Starship they could get to a price point lower than F9 (which also has an expendable upper stage).
- ben_w 6mo agoPerhaps. But until it is demonstrated, unfortunately because Musk has been overstating future costs of a lot of things for a while now, we can't rely on his optimistic statements for forecasts of our own. I'm only saying your previous "will be" is too strong a claim, not that it's completely unthinkable that it may come to be. That said, it's not like other billionaires aren't working on the same basic idea, even if they're copying what was already proven with the Falcon 9, which is great for people who want to go to space but not so much for SpaceX investors.