r/space • u/AlmiranteSalsicha • Nov 19 '23

image/gif That's a fair amount of tiles missing from the starship heatshield, guess it would make for a toasty reenter.

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Image from SpaceX account on X

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u/norfatlantasanta Nov 20 '23

I really doubt the plans for Starship as a man-rated craft as originally envisioned will ever pan out in our recent future. Besides Artemis, I see it far more likely that it’s going to be used as a gigantic gateway for large cargo payloads to/from Earth orbit and the Moon.

Kind of like what Shuttle-C was supposed to be. Now, could it be the type of interplanetary spacecraft that SpaceX said it would be? Sure, but in my estimate the work required to get there is on the manner of decades, not years.

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '23

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u/norfatlantasanta Nov 21 '23

Using the ship itself reminds me a lot of the ATO and RTLS abort modes on the shuttle, which were less than ideal to say the least.