IMO the only reason to establish an outpost on Mars is as a stepping stone to interstellar travel. If/when the ability to transport humans at nearly the speed of light or faster becomes feasible, the effort spent on colonizing Mars might have been beneficial.

Here's an idea - if you don't see the point in going to Mars, then don't go!

But I'm sure there will be plenty of very talented people who will jump at the chance.

Starship spends almost all of its fuel getting into orbit. Not just the booster, the Ship too. So, at present, Starship will need to completely refuel in order to get to the moon, descend, launch back to orbit, and if it ever wants to do it again, return to Earth orbit to refuel. This is why people are talking about multiple refueling ships for each lunar trip. Remember that just to get to LEO takes most of the volume of a Starship, so every refueling ship that comes up will only have a fraction of the volume remaining that can be used to refuel a Lunar Starship. I don’t think there is any source of methane on the moon, so that leaves out in-situ refueling. And, this does not return anyone to the surface of the Earth; for that you need an atmospheric Starship (a heavier one with flaps and a heat shield), so two vehicles at least.

Starship is not a great solution for lunar transportation. It would be good for launching something like Alpaca and then waiting in lunar orbit to return to Earth, but that’s not the vision. The “vision” is pretty blurry right now. The weakest part is the SLS which lingers solely for political reasons.

Why not the moon as practice for Mars? Because they’re entirely different. Landing on and returning from the moon teaches us almost nothing about landing on, and returning from Mars. And, Elon doesn’t give a tinker’s about going to the moon. His goal is Mars. The only thing the moon has to offer him is money that he can apply to overall Starship development.

SpaceX originally proposed/bid 16 launches to support a single lunar landing and return. When that became public record and a source of scrutiny/embarrassment; P. T. Musk revised it to eight; then later, eight became eleven.

Compared to the expense of any other lunar mission, do all those launches represent a significant cost?

If the rockets don't blow up and can be reused, no.

The thing that is worrying me about Starship is that it appears to have no payload capability. They use all their fuel to get to almost orbit, and the payload bay is basically empty. Will it be able to lift a real payload to orbit?

I feel like the "rocket equation" isn't quite working for the system, that they aren't getting enough efficiency out of the concept to be a heavy lifter.

If they had a payload mass simulator, that would inspire more confidence, but they don't.

Mike C.

This is the Bezos/BO summary (objections) to Tesla’s lunar mission proposal:

The obstacles noted in that (obviously-dated) summary seem to be falling behind pretty quickly. I wouldn't bet against SpaceX clearing the rest of them. I'm generally taking them at their word when they discuss payloads and such, but if they come anywhere close to their production and performance numbers we're in for a show.

Are the current Starship and booster versions very overbuilt to be able to cope with the testing phases and for easier less skilled rapid manufacturing. Thicker than needed skins tank parts, flaps, etc? Seems like the components survive a lot of abuse before failing. Hanging together during high rotation spins and tumbling.

Once launches, catching, control, vibration, propellant liquid dynamics and engine operations are routine will the airframe components be "Lightened up" for the actual missions.

I’ve not seen any numbers on the quantity of fuel and oxidizer that they are using for testing. My assumption has been that it is just enough to get the vehicle into a low, sub-orbital trajectory for testing purposes and no more. In other words, the tanks aren’t full. If they are in fact full, rather than the on screen “gauge” showing “full” relative to the planned load, then yeah, that’s a show stopper.

I thought his last response was more along the lines of "at least 11" and IIRC some folks with the appropriate know how estimated the number is more than 15.

Also I believe Musk has said something like "We'll be able to launch so frequently and inexpensively that the number of ship's carrying fuel to orbit doesn't mater.

Watch the YouTube video on page #2 titled:

“Elon Musk and Sandy Munro Discuss SpaceX and the Mission to Occupy Mars”

Elon says they are ramping up to build 1000 Starships per year.

Rough math is 3 launches per day.

He also discusses launch windows to Mars only opens once every two years.

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Plan soon your next $100 hamburger run to BRO -

They've mentioned that Starship will eventually have nine engines. It currently has six. I wonder how that factors in to how much fuel they're loading today vs. how much will be available for future launches.

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Yes it’s over a hour and it’s over a year old but it’s worth watching -