You’re not wrong, but not relevant either. If your RTT to the server is 15ms, then connecting to that server with TLS1.2 will take 4×15ms = 60ms. On Starlink that will currently take 4×45ms = 180ms. Yes, 180ms is three times 60ms, but to a human that is irrelevant. Humans can’t detect time intervals of less than 100ms, and can only barely detect intervals less than 200ms. In a direct comparison between the two, humans will rate the 60ms connection as instantaneous and the slower 180ms connection as nearly instantaneous. This makes them “close” as the article described, especially when compared to old–school satellite links where the RTT can be insane.

And the handshake time doesn’t compound; there is no need to open a new connection to the server for every resource needed by a webpage. The web browser just keeps reusing the same connection until it runs out of resources to fetch from the server.