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Re:Starship is still not understood by ncallaway on Thursday October 28, 2021 @11:16AM (#29027089)
> But what's new in Starship?

The planned recovery mechanism (the aerodynamic fall, with a very late righting maneuver and landing) is still quite new. They've successfully tested it once (which is great!), but the Starship concept really hinges on that being an extremely high reliability maneuver.

I would argue that, until SpaceX can demonstrate that landing maneuver is high reliability, that the Starship concept isn't proven.

I say this as a massive fan of Starship, and someone who is extremely excited by the promises of Starship of they come to fruition.

Re:Starship is still not understood by humanwhosits on Thursday October 28, 2021 @02:54PM (#29029988)
They can take the mass penalty of performing a large re-entry burn to reduce heat-load and land falcon9-style. It would mean _much_ less mass to orbit, but the cost savings of reusing the vehicles would still be there.
Re:Starship is still not understood by JulianMorrison on Thursday October 28, 2021 @03:27PM (#29030519)
Except that one of the Starship's big new things is refuelling in orbit.