>>14216592It will 100% work, seriously, because:
1. Their whole iterative process is, by rocket standards, dirt cheap and super, super fast. So while they may well have more explosions and things to work through, that's ok. They can, I'm sure they'd love if everything went perfectly the first time but unlike with typical rockets have some more booms isn't the end of the world.
2. They have plenty of money, even staying totally private. Thanks to Tesla, Elon has tens of billions to get loans against or liquidate. They can't be sloppy like BO but neither is there any kind of desperation.
3. SpaceX is a very tight ship. They can indeed execute.
4. The "hard part" is done, to the extent such a thing exists in rocketry. They've got working incredible engines and have proven the complex flip maneuver and landing. Everything after that is stuff they've done (go up go down for the booster), certainly with details to get through that will take serious work and engineering, but known unknowns not unknown unknowns.
5. They've got so much margin to work with they can afford taking a while to get to full potential. Like, if Starship was "merely" 5x better instead of 20x better that's still fucking good. They can definitely make the thing go UP. So worst case for a while would be the booster goes up and down and second stage continues to be expended while they practice, and that still is a big boost. Steel is cheap.
So yeah they're in a pretty good place. Still with stuff to deal with, and there is regulatory bullshit that could fuck up schedule, but they've got to be feeling energized.
