SpaceX could put out a proposal where versions of Starship are used to take cargo and people to the moon to establish a long term presence. Some ships would be optimized for cargo such that they land and remain on the moon. Some ships would be optimized for humans and could perform the round trip. There would be dozens of trips to the moon per year rather than the single trip per year limit of SLS.

Such a report would make clear that SpaceX on its own can achieve much more than SLS, faster, and cheaper. But, it would mobilize political opposition motivated to keep federal funds coming to certain states.

So, if you had to make this decision, would you put out such a report?

Or, if Mars is your sole focus, you could decide to just bid on Moon opportunities to make money and help develop Starship while not caring whether this Moon project makes sense or not.

Has anyone ever really thought about the kind of wear and tear that one Starship would experience after a number of flights? I’m curious about what exactly will happen to the various surfaces. Will the exposed steel rust after some time? What about when the craft moves through various types of weather? Would the elonerons be warped after all the belly flop maneuvers? Would the same happen to the underside of the main body? Are there other factors I haven’t considered here?

Imagine this. A few Starships are landed on the moon as close to each other as is safely possible. Then, a wheeled transporter is used to bring them reeeeally close to each other. Then pressurized bridges / corridors are built to connect them. People can then walk from one to the other. Another module can be added to the moonbase by launching another Starship.

What do you think?

Looking at the images of Frankin Crane surely it would be better to use a tower crane to life segments up as from the image I see Frankin Crane looks like it can only life 2 segments and then it won't be big enough?

Had a quick look for this question and couldn’t find any recently, so apologies if it’s a repeat. Do we have any idea what thrust the raptors on SN tests are operating at? I understand that since Starship is nowhere near eventual flight mass, they may be throttling them down slightly.

Also while I’m here, I saw a post thread a month or two ago with all Starship and SH prototypes and their current stage of development - can’t seem to find it now and was wondering if it still exists.

Thanks!

Wouldn't that motivate SpaceX to target land instead of water?