Agreed it would be absolutely seismic.
How well does that look, from a cold, objective, non-Elon-hype point of view? I mean, he might happen to be 100% correct in his optimism but by now I learned to trust nothing that man says.
How well does that look, from a cold, objective, non-Elon-hype point of view? I mean, he might happen to be 100% correct in his optimism but by now I learned to trust nothing that man says.
They will have trouble getting customers who can actually use the capabilities Starship has. Seems like everyone is still designing missions for status quo. Luckily they already saw that issue and created their own launch customer in Starlink. And HLS with orbital refueling will also be key.
Maybe it's wrong information :) and maybe a lot has changed since then. But by now I'd be really surprised if some of heavy industrial manufacture companies wouldn't have some plans for equipment to supply to the possible Moon base, as the chances of that happening in some not so distant future look plausible.
As for proportionality, it's up to Starship Isp - which isn't hydrogen, but rather good in comparison with kerosene (well... some Russian vacuum kerosene engines are quite good by Isp...) - and construction mass ratio, which, usually favoring large stages, is rather good for Starship. So, for those 8-12 refueling launches you get payload on the surface of the Moon which dwarfs the one sent by Saturn-Vs, by an order of magnitude or quite likely more. And - important part - all of that is much cheaper, because the main thing being expended is fuel, not rocket stage hardware.
I admit I did get a little caught up in Musk's web of hype in the early days but fortunately my natural scepticism was strong enough to resist him. Eventually, I found a few detailed analyses of some of his technological fantasies which convinced me that some of what he proposes will not be happening any time soon, if ever.
I am by no means an Elon Musk hater but he does speak a lot of nonsense, from time to time, and he seems to be able to persuade many to abandon their scientific scepticism.
I was persuaded by what Common Sense Sceptic says about some of Elon Musk's plans: <https://www.youtube.com/@commonsenseskeptic>, even though he is clearly biased against Elon Musk.
I am convinced that
1. A city-to-city Starship shuttle passenger service will never happen.
2. A self-sustaining colony on Mars will not happen in the foreseeable future.
I have strong doubts about other SpaceX and Tesla claims by Elon Musk, but these two events I would actually bet on.
> 1. A city-to-city Starship shuttle passenger service will never happen.
> 2. A self-sustaining colony on Mars will not happen in the foreseeable future.
Both are in my opinion completely technologically feasible. Just not economically feasible.
If we had another space race I could see a mars colony in the 2040. But I don't think it will happen.
#2 becomes a much more interesting debate if you remove the self sustaining aspect of it, and consider just an Earth dependent colony. Full self sustainability will probably only happen decades after the creation of a persistent colony. There's just too much industry to recreate in an entirely new environment for it to be a remotely quick process.
Secondly, and honestly more importantly, most of the information he relies in his videos is actually incorrect and outright lies. This is a really good long video that goes through CSS's "facts" and points out how his information is completely faulty and comes from a lack of understanding of rockets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQsyd4MmQCU