It's pretty remarkable progress. Slowly but surely, they're getting it done. I predict they'll have a full working version by 2027. By 2028, they'll have regular reusable flights.

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grapesodaaaaa 5 days ago | parent [-]

My personal estimates are similar. For anyone that followed Falcon 9 development (from the first Falcon 1 launches), it’s really similar. I remember boom after boom until one day they cracked the problem and reusable boosters became the status quo.

I got tingles when the first booster landed on the drone ship, because I knew access to space had just changed in a fundamental way.

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jmyeet 5 days ago | parent [-]

Comparing Falcon 9 to Starship is a dangerous mistake.

First, the time frames are way off. Development of the Falcon 9 took ~5 years (2005 to 2010). The first reused booster came much later (2017?).

Second, Starship is much more expensive for each launch attempt than Falcon 9 ever was.

Third, Starship is significantly more complicated technology-wise, being methane based. There are reasons to do this but it then requires cooling both propellants (instead of just liquid oxygen and RP-1 ie kerosene with the Falcon 9(.

Fourth, Starship has to compete with somethingg Falcon 9 never did: Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is now the most succcessful and cheapest launch platform in history. It is the reliable workhorse of the industry and relatively cheap to launch. Its reuse is proven.

Fifth, the market for Starship is unproven. We can compare it to other launch systems for heavy payloads, most notably the Falcon Heavy, which I believe has only had ~12 launches in almost a decade (compared to the 100+ Falcon 9 launches every year).

You could argue SpaceX will steer customers to Starship but there'll be other competitors (to the Falcon 9) by then.

Lastly, Starship is still so far from being human-rated. So much of the needed tech (eg refuelling in orbit) hasn't even begun testing yet. I can easily see this taking another decade at least.

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terminalshort 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Second, Starship is much more expensive for each launch attempt than Falcon 9 ever was

They are already reusing boosters, so it might already be cheaper than F9 before booster reuse. Once they start reusing the ships, it will be cheaper than F9 with booster reuse because F9 has to build a new second stage each launch.

> Fifth, the market for Starship is unproven

The market for Starship is proven by SpaceX itself. The Starship can add 20x the Starlink network capacity per launch as F9. There are currently around 100 Starlink launches per year, so the market couldn't be more proven.

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nilstycho 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Second, Starship is much more expensive for each launch attempt than Falcon 9 ever was.

The launch cost of a Starship today is high, especially if you include development costs, but Musk's goal is a marginal launch cost of ~$1M. A Falcon 9's launch price is ~$70M; Musk claims a "best case" marginal Falcon 9 launch costs ~$15M.

	▲	baq 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah if those numbers are even in the correct order of magnitude Starlink will become a literal money printer. Any commercial or government launch contracts will be cherries on top. Bezos will be our only hope for affordable satellite internet.

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antoniuschan99 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Just look at their launch cadence for falcon 9.

https://www.spacex.com/launches

It’s a bunch of starlink missions. With some dedicated and rideshare missions.

	▲	grapesodaaaaa 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It’s worth mentioning that one of the reasons the cadence is so high for Starlink is because customers buy the boosters, and they can be re-used for many Starlink launches.