It would save the government some upfront money and then result in losses in the hundreds of billions as others can’t come close to the cost to orbit that Starship can.
There’s nothing being designed today by anyone that would compete with it if successful.
Falcon 9 as it is saves the government billions of dollars.
For all intents and purposes, starship has made it to orbit a few times. They purposely kept it sub orbital by cutting the engines off a few seconds early so it would re-enter the atmosphere where and as planned for their tests.
You wouldn’t want a ship designed to survive re-entry to fail, and make landfall over a major city, but they have landed it as planned in the ocean in a controlled manner a couple times.
(Edit: also the last 3 launches have been the V2 ship. It’s substantially different than the V1s they did land in the ocean and is having some growing pains)
In the time SpaceX has designed, launched, landed, and reused two orbital boosters, no one else has done it once.
It would save the government some upfront money and then result in losses in the hundreds of billions as others can’t come close to the cost to orbit that Starship can.
There’s nothing being designed today by anyone that would compete with it if successful.
Falcon 9 as it is saves the government billions of dollars.
Starship is the one that has never made it to orbit and keeps exploding
For all intents and purposes, starship has made it to orbit a few times. They purposely kept it sub orbital by cutting the engines off a few seconds early so it would re-enter the atmosphere where and as planned for their tests.
You wouldn’t want a ship designed to survive re-entry to fail, and make landfall over a major city, but they have landed it as planned in the ocean in a controlled manner a couple times.
(Edit: also the last 3 launches have been the V2 ship. It’s substantially different than the V1s they did land in the ocean and is having some growing pains)
In the time SpaceX has designed, launched, landed, and reused two orbital boosters, no one else has done it once.