The Starship concept of operations requires 11 launches for each mission to the moon - one for the vehicle, another 10 to refuel it once it get into earth orbit. Each of these missions have to autonomously dock and perform a cryogenic fuel transfer.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, has shown an operationally-viable in-space cryo transfer. Even doing it on Earth is a fussy thing - cryo transfer was behind two of the Artemis I scrubs, and NASA’s been doing it since Apollo.
Getting one Starship into orbit is an interesting milestone but it’s a long way from what they promised the world they could do… and the clock is ticking.
SpaceX is truly one of the most impressive companies of our time.
Completely revolutionised the space industry and I wish them the best. Excited for this and glad that it has increased people's interest and love of science and engineering.
The starship is glorious. I love the Saturn V and have for years but this thing has a similar though different beauty to it. Really want to see one fly. Seen a falcon 9 and it was honestly magical, even got the jellyfish effect, never experienced anything like it. But a Saturn V/ starship must be next level.
I made the mistake of replying to this story on the SpaceX lemmy and was not received well.
All the little Musky Space fanboys will just keep deluding themselves that this is some kind of actual thing that will work, and that SpaceX will be immune to collapsing into oblivion as is everything else associated with Elon Musk.
