@requiem I bet the cost of those programs are several orders of magnitude different by the time they're done. The Starship will be a whole lot cheaper because they're willing to test, test, test, on novel designs rather than sticking with proven systems, and overdesigning everything. I'd be surprised if the Starship costs even 50 billion by the end, let alone 100 trillion. Artemis also is going to ultimately give us a disposable rocket with barely any reusable components, while Starship should be extensively reusable.

@requiem @winter Falcon 9 is private property, and yet it gives NASA the capabilities to get humans to the space station at much lower prices than before. Besides, with a commercialized reusable rocket, we're more likely as civilians to be able to get to space, than with 4.1 billion NASA rockets that are public property, but still built by private companies.

@kazriko @requiem the Falcon 9 isn't remotely comparable to the Starship, it's an actual good launch vehicle that was developed in a sensible way and only has had a normal number of launch failures.

@winter @requiem If you look at its early days, it also had quite a few launch failures, it was also significantly less aggressive. Falcon 9 had numerous failures in their landing system for example before they got it right. Starship is both trying to make a viable full cycle engine, and trying to make the largest, highest thrust rocket ever made, but also trying to get the landing system that requires higher precision than the Falcon with a larger rocket down at the same time. It's not the least bit of a surprise that it's going to take it more trial and error before it is finished. They are following the same method they used for the Falcon though, with their destructive tests on Landing until they get it right.