By the same token SpaceX has no reason to optimize Starship. That is also largely a government project.

It's a private company, is profit motivated, and thus has reason to optimize. That was the parent poster's point.

Starship isn't largely a government project. It was planned a decade before the government was ever involved, they came along later and said "Hey, this even more incredible launch platform you're building? Maybe we can hire SpaceX to launch some things with it?"

Realistically, SpaceX launches far more payload than any government.

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habinero 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Haha no. SpaceX survives entirely on money from the US government. It's always been that way.

	▲	s-y an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Where are you getting this from?
	▲	thinkcontext an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		A puzzling statement, could you explain? Most of their revenue now comes Starlink which is mostly private clients. Also it's trivial to look at their launch history and see they have plenty of private clients. For sure the USG is their most important client but "entirely" is flat out wrong.
	▲	lightedman an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Entirely? lol not even close. Source: I am out of LEDs and LASERs and now handle aerospace solar for a private company. Guess who almost everyone in the private sector flies on?

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pineaux an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

that is true. They would have failed after their first failed launch. The US government saved them.