The economics and use cases have and are evolving.

I don't see this as "space shuttle done right" as a vehicle or "program" without the ability to carry out maintenance and recovery missions. As expensive as it was, for various reasons, it was actually used for those missions.

For example I don't think "space data centers" are going to work I'd the upgrade path for the hardware is vaporize is all and replace it vs recover and recycle/resell.

It would not change my conclusion at all.

If you asked me if I wanted to return to earth on something that glides like a plane and lands on a runway with no propulsion... or a pressure vessel that needs it's engines to work perfectly to get you back to a single spot at the pad, within a few meters, to be 'caught', and if that doesn't happen, you hit the ground vertically and explode...

I know which one I'm taking. Yes I know the shuttle had no 'go-around' as a glider. But wings and wheels and a big runway in the desert.... versus the insane acrobatics of Starship...

We haven't seen how Starship would deal with crosswinds in the atmosphere being predicted wrong. What happens when it knows it is off course on the way down and can't make it back to the pad? If there where people onboard? I assume there would be a contingency where it just vents fuel and hits the ground and hopes to act as a crush-can at terminal velocity but I don't know how people survive that. By comparison, ditching the shuttle like a plane with an engine-out failure seems easy by comparison.

I am not demeaning the amazing achievement of the Starship and its booster and this ability to catch it and reuse it. I think that is indeed an amazing achievement that should be celebrated. But I don't see this as being a thing to put people on that can somehow be intrinsically safer than the Shuttle, just yet. These are just my basic opinions, I think they are opinions with some merit, and I don't feel that deserves downvotes.

The system architecture seems to be more fragile than simple capsules with parachutes or even the shuttle (which was already pretty dangerous). There’s no parachute, if you don’t hit the tower during landing you’re in a lot of trouble (unless they can soft-land the ship without the tower and without the bottom exploding?).

Starship’s been in development for over two decades and the design keeps being changed and failing.

Soyuz has a very impressive record, Starship has been horrifically mismanaged by comparison. The falcon heavy flew 14 times and SpaceX is all in on a heavy launch vehicle because what? Even if they hit every target perfectly from now on it was a wasteful project.

I don't think it makes sense to make starship human rated. They'd likely give up too much. Probably better to have a different cheaper rocket for the people.

Like you don't build a barge to ferry standards, it would defeat the point of the barge.

nah humans going is the point. the science is interesting but not of that tremendous value. we don't view archaeology as the highest human endeavor do we?

My comment was in reply to the parent comment saying "Starship is, essentially, Space Shuttle done right" , and my claim is that this is not the case, that comparing Starship to the Space Shuttle is a category error, in that I don't see Starship actually being replacement for the Shuttle as a human-transport vehicle, and thus it cannot be considered 'Space Shuttle done right'.

It's done by thousands of people, who are employed by a republican.

Reducing their work to the (self-serving) political alignments of the CEO is a big part of the optics issue.