The Meaning of Starship

The capability being developed by SpaceX is going to change everything.

Imagine, several years from now, you run a space startup and are pitching to a potential investor. Suppose your company has a close loop life support technology that allows the production of cheese from waste, bypassing the need for an animal, and you want to supply this to various commercial space stations and space habitats that have recently been constructed. Mid way through your slide deck the investor holds up his hand to stop you and asks the question you’ve been dreading: “Isn’t it going to be cheaper just to send up more cheese with Starship?”

Today, Starship test flight IFT-3 was launched, largely successfully, and although the scenario above is still some way off, there are a lot of business models, and entire modes of thinking about space, that will be undermined when the vehicle is ultimately ready for flight.

A Perfect Ascent

After a short delay to clear the range of wayward boats, the Starship/Superheavy took off with 33 engines working well. Hot staging worked and, contrar…