> Starship is, essentially, Space Shuttle done right
There's lots to praise here, but they haven't flown a single manned mission yet
(Also hindsight is 20:20)
> without solid boosters (avoids Challenger disaster) and orbiter stacked on top instead of on the side (avoid Columbia disaster)
We know of the failure modes of the Shuttle, we don't know about the failures of Starship
Or better, the two obvious ones: it will fail to be caught or it will fail to bellyflop
And of course Starship benefits immensely from computers getting thousands of times better and lighter (and cheaper)
> Even more revolutionary, compared to Shuttle, Starship is built on an assembly line
Yes this is a big win
[−]enraged_camel · 2026-11-15 Sun 16:33 UTC ·
link
>> We know of the failure modes of the Shuttle, we don't know about the failures of Starship
This is blatantly false. SpaceX learned a ton about different failure modes by launching many Starships during testing and watching them explode. The Shuttle had to take a conservative approach because it was expensive and there was no budget for the type of just-launch-it-and-see-what-happens approach SpaceX takes.
There's lots to praise here, but they haven't flown a single manned mission yet
(Also hindsight is 20:20)
> without solid boosters (avoids Challenger disaster) and orbiter stacked on top instead of on the side (avoid Columbia disaster)
We know of the failure modes of the Shuttle, we don't know about the failures of Starship
Or better, the two obvious ones: it will fail to be caught or it will fail to bellyflop
And of course Starship benefits immensely from computers getting thousands of times better and lighter (and cheaper)
> Even more revolutionary, compared to Shuttle, Starship is built on an assembly line
Yes this is a big win
This is blatantly false. SpaceX learned a ton about different failure modes by launching many Starships during testing and watching them explode. The Shuttle had to take a conservative approach because it was expensive and there was no budget for the type of just-launch-it-and-see-what-happens approach SpaceX takes.