SpaceX seems to be rather foolishly planning on completely replacing the Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy with Starship which is going to create demand for it.
I don’t think it’s foolish, for more or less the above reason. Starlink is the market for Falcon 9. Without that it apparently isn’t so profitable, because outside of Starlink the demand for a system with that kind of launch cadence just didn’t really materialize.
But that’s also why I’m skeptical about whether Starship will live up to the hype. The whole case for how it’s supposed to revolutionize spaceflight rests on the assumption that it can tap into a huge well of latent demand to put stuff in orbit. If such a well really does exist then we have to ask why Falcon 9 wasn’t able to tap into it despite all of its obvious merits.
But that’s also why I’m skeptical about whether Starship will live up to the hype. The whole case for how it’s supposed to revolutionize spaceflight rests on the assumption that it can tap into a huge well of latent demand to put stuff in orbit. If such a well really does exist then we have to ask why Falcon 9 wasn’t able to tap into it despite all of its obvious merits.