>>13848798And people forget there are some things that make turning grain silo into real rocket inherently extremely expensive.
The Starship must functionally do more than F9, even on an unmanned cargo version.
Material cost is likely to grow when they leave the prototype stage and discovers they need better alloy to avoid material fatigue over reuse. CH4/LOX also have its own inconvenience, there's reasons everyone didn't jump on it.
Recovery of the 1st stage is not yet guaranteed to be easy and without problems or damage,
Recovery of the 2nd stage mean they'll have a lot more to check than one launcher and a small capsule.
It's true they'll save on the engine as it's not an hundred year oldspace engines, but "mass produced" isn't a magical cost reduction measure, just like the Merlin production can't be improved indefinitely. And who know if it turn out you need to change engines all the time.
Finally to get it rated for human flight the cost for safety & redtape will skyrocket because you can't afford spontaneous tiles disassembly during reentry and who know what a cascade effect will look like on Sship. The Dragon capsule have a now classic escape method that Starship can't use.
So is it going to humiliate every oldspace agency ever made?
Probably, even if it only reach orbit, but it have no reason to cost less.
Unless they overcharge the military big time again and undercharge other clients.
