A white elephant is a possession that its owner cannot dispose of without extreme difficulty, and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. – Wikipedia
SpaceX is scheduled for another try at launching its giant rocket in June. Will it work this time? By work, I mean both booster and Starship vehicle return to the ground more or less intact Each launch has done better than the previous but all three launches have experienced “disassemblies” of both its booster and its main vehicle.
This will be the fourth test in a year. Some people reckon it may need twenty launches before it is ready for its first commercial cargo and even more launches before it is ready for a crew.
It’s years behind its promised schedule.
Its design is revolutionary and promises to make reaching Earth orbit cheap and easy. It’s fueled by liquid methane and liquid oxygen. The booster and the Starship vehicle are intended to be fully reusable. Both bodies are composed of stainless steel cylinders, each with a height less than six feet, and walls less than a quarter inch thick that have been welded together. When I think of those quarter inch walled cylinders welded together, I can’t help but think of the Titan submersible. How many heatings and coolings, jarring launches and landings before something pops? I hope they have tested this some way.
Elon Musk has promised a lot from the system. He considers it to be a kind of all purpose workhorse not only for interplanetary travel but even for quick travel from point to point on Earth. The U.S. military is even looking into whether it could be used to transport troops. It is critical to Musk’s plan to colonize Mars.
I’m not a fan of Elon Musk but I am a fan of SpaceX, so I think this would be great if Starship works. And maybe it will. I doubt this is going to fulfill Musk’s dreams of interplanetary travel or much of anything else besides lifting some heavy stuff into low Earth orbit.
Do we really think business travelers are going to hop a Starship to reach Tokyo in an hour? Is there going to be another booster waiting there for the return flight? What about weather? Can it launch in rain or with a little bit of wind? Probably not. The next generation of supersonic transport is going to fill this need. An SST might need a few extra hours to get there, but it will probably be a lot cheaper and more reliable than a giant rocket. A little bit of wind isn’t going to ground it. Even if it lacks the cachet of space flight, I think I’ll take the SST.
What about space flight? The problem is that Starship has been designed as a sort of Swiss Army knife of space transport. A Swiss Army knife can be a great tool in a pinch for some things. But it is not a hammer or even a saw unless whatever you need to slice is fairly skinny.
What really is needed for interplanetary exploration are different types of special purpose vehicles that can work together, not one single massive rocket.
1- Boosters that can lift really large and heavy objects from Earth to orbit.
The Starship booster could succeed at doing this, but the Starship vehicle isn’t needed because most of this stuff isn’t coming back. This will be things destined for Earth orbit or hauled to the Moon or Mars.
2- Transports for equipment, supplies, and people between Earth and the Moon or Mars.
These needs to be big and fast, but they don’t need to return to Earth or land anywhere else. They can be constructed in orbit, but they will need to use an advanced propulsion system, such as an ion drive, that can shorten the travel times. An ion drive is under development by NASA that could reach Mars in two months.For interplanetary travel a transport will need heavy shielding to protect humans from galactic cosmic rays.
3- Landers for non-human cargo.
Landing on Mars, landing on the Moon, and returning to Earth have different requirements. A lander carrying equipment and supplies doesn’t need to be able to return to space. No need for a Starship rocket carrying equipment to Mars to blast off after arrival.These could be cheap and able to be carried by the transports from Earth orbit to their final destination. Ideally the landers themselves could be repurposed once their cargo is removed. No need for complex or heavy life support systems for humans on these.
4- Space planes for humans to return to Earth.
The Space Shuttle had the right idea for return to Earth. Sierra Space is developing the Dream Chaser space plane. We can fly or glide like a plane in the Earth’s atmosphere. Why not take advantage of it?Why build a return vehicle with a big engine that it can land upright like Starship? It’s pointless on Earth where a lighter or even jet-fueled plane can serve. A plane could potentially land on almost any runway in a pinch.
5- Landers for humans for Mars and the Moon.
These need to be able to refuel and takeoff again without an additional boosters after landing. NASA is expecting the Starship vehicle to land on the Moon. Maybe it will some day. But since we are only carrying humans and life support, the Starship may be overbuilt unless we are planning to be transporting hundreds of people. I don’t see that anytime soon.
Where does the Starship system fit into this? The booster will be wonderful when we need to launch heavy stuff. There will always be that need, but ideally we would want to move to a miniaturization approach with most satellites and exploration vehicles.The Starship vehicle might work as human landers on the Moon or Mars, but probably vehicles specifically designed for the task might serve better.
Bottomline is I don’t see the future Musk sees, but then I’m not a visionary.
[Image from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#/media/File:Full_Stack_starship.jpg]
Broad Speculations 
