>>13008763>everything Starship sucks at - higher Earth orbits, lunar ISRU, reusable kick staging for planetary missions, and any place where making methane is difficult.Starship doesn't actually suck for any of those things, though. Not nearly enough to make it worth it to build an entire system of hydrolox tugs and propellant depots.
>higher Earth orbitsStarship with zero refueling can do 21 tons to GTO. This is more than any other rocket except SLS, which basically means it's more than any other rocket full stop, since SLS is not going to be available to be used for anything other than launching Orion capsules to the Moon a few times, then being cancelled. Starship after two refueling launches can send its maximum LEO payload to GTO (whatever that is, 100+ tons, as high as 150 probably). Anything smaller than 21 tons is not going to need more than a single Starship launch to get out to GTO, and anything bigger than 21 tons is likely much too big for what hydrolox tug infrastructure would be designed for.
>Lunar ISRU3/4ths of the mass of propellant on Starship is liquid oxygen, the rest is methane. If Starship short loads on oxygen, it can send an equivalent mass in additional payload to the Moon, then refill its oxygen tank on site, then return to Earth. Lunar oxygen ISRU is fully 75% as effective as Mars methalox ISRU. The only real catch is that Starship can't FULLY load up on propellants, it's limited to refilling the amount of oxygen needed to burn its remaining methane, which is enough to get it back to Earth only.
>reusable kick stagingFully loaded Starship in GTO can blast payloads with large departure delta V's and then deploy that payload before performing a braking burn to avoid escaping Earth, then just aerobrake back down.
>where methane is difficultSee my other point, but yeah, around the Galilean moon's you're likely not using methalox, you'd actually be using water inside nuclear thermal rockets, because it's better than hydrolox.
