Starship is the largest, most advanced, and most powerful rocket built to date, all while being fully reusable. Starship expands humanity's ability to boost objects into LEO tenfold (Falcon 9's 23,000kg to LEO vs. Starship's 330,000 to LEO). This impressive advancement, along with the superlatives mentioned, will follow Starship throughout its service life, but Starship represents something much deeper.
SpaceX has returned the U.S. and, in many ways, the world to space. They did the impossible and then some. A small launch company created in 2002, failing to get the Falcon 1 to orbit four times and almost facing bankruptcy in 2008, achieved the impossible in 2015 by propulsively landing an orbital rocket booster. This paved the way for the next eight years of rapid change in rocket reusability, reducing the price-per-kilogram to orbit by a factor of 25.
The price dropped significantly even from the partially reusable Space Shuttle's $54,000/kg to the Falcon 9's $2,720/kg. SpaceX rapidly outpaces the competition; one launch of a Falcon 9 rocket costs half of what it costs to launch a ULA Atlas V rocket, despite the Falcon 9 being more powerful. The more powerful Falcon Heavy still costs 10 million less to launch than the Atlas V. This rapid decrease in cost has completely changed the orbital landscape. While not solely responsible, SpaceX and the Falcon 9 have greatly contributed to the rapid rise in the number of satellites being launched. Falcon Heavy continued this trend, becoming the most powerful operational rocket when it launched in 2017 and making history when its two side boosters landed simultaneously. The praises of SpaceX have been sung far and wide, and this article has only begun to touch the surface of what SpaceX has accomplished itself and has encouraged within the industry.
The power of SpaceX becomes even more apparent when you realize that the Falcon 9, its reusability, cost-effectiveness, and groundbreaking techniques, are only a means to an end. SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies) was created with the mission to put humans on Mars. In 2002, the plan was to buy old Russian rockets to send tiny payloads to Mars, but Musk was laughed out of the conference room. This started the story of SpaceX as we know it, and just over 20 years later, SpaceX is on the precipice of realizing Musk's mission. Starship is the Mars rocket that no one else can build; its capabilities are an order of magnitude greater than that of the Falcon 9 and offer over double the amount of thrust compared to the Saturn V and SLS. It is this capability of Starship that puts us on the edge of a precipice of unknown scale.
The 4/20 inaugural launch of Starship marks the line that humanity crossed into the future. Starship is the rocket that will take humanity to Mars and the solar system, the most powerful rocket ever by a factor of 2. Tim Dodd, "The Everyday Astronaut," who will be riding Starship around the moon as part of the privately funded "DearMoon" mission, said it best as he watched Starship launch live: "Humanity's progress right here... This is the future I've been waiting for." This future, this line that we've crossed, is radically different from what we know. Starship opens the gates to gigantic orbital construction projects and space stations that enable tourism and even habitation. The market has only begun to adapt to the large increase in the payloads that will be possible to take to orbit. Just last week at the Space Symposium, Airbus announced their LOOP module, an all-in-one self-contained orbital habitation module that fits perfectly in Starship's payload bay. However, Starship's monumental increase in payload capacity to orbit is only part of the equation. Starship's ability to carry humans is integral to its mission and far outpaces anything else currently in operation or planned. Starship can hold up to 100 people for a mission to the moon or Mars. This is more people in a single launch than have ever been in space since the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. This capability is not only theoretical; Starship is contracted as the HLS (Human Landing System) portion of NASA's Artemis program, which puts humans back on the moon as soon as December 2025. This is only the beginning; SpaceX is ultimately aiming for Mars; SpaceX COO Shotwell said the first crewed mission to Mars will happen before the end of the decade. SpaceX's Mars-shot isn't just a mission to land on the surface of Mars, but to begin and maintain a permanent presence on the red planet.
The reality of Starship is almost incomprehensible; it was only ten years ago that American and global spaceflight was on death's door, now, in the blink of an eye, we are crossing the threshold of a future promised long ago. The aptly and perhaps presciently named Starship is the starship; it is the culmination of years of dedicated work from SpaceX and a lifetime of dreaming from every construction worker working on Starbase, to Elon himself. Starship is the physical embodiment of hope for humanity, that we can achieve, that we can not only touch the surface of another planet but thrive, establish permanent residence, and become multiplanetary.
This is the Future's Watershed moment; everything beyond this point is uncharted territory, the unprecedented advancement and opportunity that Starship provides will stretch almost every single system humans have created beyond its limits. Starship is the platform that will first carry humanity into the eternal frontier. As Starship takes flight, it carries with it the dreams, aspirations, and determination of countless visionaries who dared to imagine a future among the stars. This monumental achievement not only redefines the boundaries of human ingenuity but also serves as a testament to our unwavering pursuit of progress and our collective desire to explore the cosmos.
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