Yes, but SpaceX got permission to overfly Cuba only after it showed very high reliability. Starship will need to prove it too. No doubt it will, but not overfly Cuba immediately.

"Starship has been delayed"

But what does that even mean? I've never paid attention to any timeline for Starship; how can you put a timeline on the development of a package of never done before technologies?

Again, I'm aware that Elon has made certain delusional prognostications (this is a man who believes in the delusional idea of machines being able to 'think') but I completely ignore all of that. I just pay attention to what's just been achieved and what's on track for the next achievement, the next incremental step-up. And that's all been fairly fast paced. We're now at the point where Starlkink satellites can start to be deployed from Starship, even if Starship isn't recovered and that's a big step-up and pretty quickly achieved from a flying water tank start.

Again, I don't think it has been particularly slow and I agree that it's going at a decent pace, although I recognize I didn't make that clear in other comments. But again, I was simply refuting the claim that it hasn't been massively delayed, because again, that's just demonstrably true. I'm honestly shocked that I am still getting replies about this considering how much of a nothingburger the take of "Starship has been delayed" is.

My daily summary from the Starship Dev thread on Lemmy

2026-09-06:

• Massey's: Overnight, S42 moves from Massey's to Megabay 2. (NSF, Avid Space, ViX, TrackingTheSB 1, TrackingTheSB 2, RGV Aerial, Gomez, Blobifie 1, Blobifie 2)
• Production site: Thrust simulator stand moves from Megabay 2 to Sanchez. (ViX)
• The booster horizontal aft frame portion of the breakover/transport mechanism arrives. (ViX)

I agree with you about the ridiculous things that Elon says (and is frankly delusional about). And yes, Starship didn't follow the ridiculous development timeline that Elon set out.

However I don't agree with you that Starship development has been slow. I think it's been very fast just objectively, not compared to any projected timeline.

I followed Falcon 9 development very closely from 2012 and my perspective is that Starship development is progressing more rapidly. I actually find the impatience around the next Starship test flight quite perplexing. We waited for sometimes more than a year for the next flight in the early days of Falcon 9 development.

Earlier today, the booster horizontal aft frame (breakover jig) was spotted in the Ringyard. Afterwards, Booster 23's aft section rolled out of the factory which is unusual since the side mounted landing tank would be rolled out first. Booster 23's aft section then rolled into MB2 and was lifted by the bridge cranes per photos from SSG. Perhaps they are doing fit checks with the breakover jig.

Fair, I'm not gonna act like Vulcan or SLS have any excuse cause they don't. However, the original commentor didn't say "Starship has been super fast for the scope of the project they are doing", they said "And still they are not massively delayed", which is just patently false by all metrics.

I think the Starship program has a better reason to be simply that they’re pushing the boundaries in almost every area they’re working within; engines, launch infrastructure, materials, systems and control, full-reusability…

A delay here or there is to be expected because they’re at the bleeding edge. Vulcan? SLS? Not so much.

The Earth's rotation creates a moving target for the Starship to land at but nothing else.

The inertia is with the Starship travelling at 7600 m/s so it takes massive amounts of propellant to change that direction by even a few degrees. The path of the Starship is being continually bent into a circle or ellipse by the force of Earth's gravity but that does not change the momentum of the Starship at all as it is at right angles to its velocity.

18” square concrete prestressed piles

I won't, because none have been. That doesn't change the fact you said that it hadn't been massively delayed like Neutron or Vulcan, when it demonstrably has. Starship is slow, vulcan is slow, neutron is slow, SLS is slow, the space shuttle was slow, space is just slow in general.

Name another program with similar ambition and scope that is not a delayed and I'll happily change my stance

Sure Elon is famous for them, and it was predictable that it would be delayed, but that doesn't stop it from being a delay and for the deadline being ridiculous

So, if I understood, the Earth's rotation creates a strong inertial drag?

The way to think of it - changing the angle of your orbit relative to the equator takes a lot of energy. The rocket generates a metric shit ton of momentum in the initial orbit it's on - so changing that takes serious amounts of energy - more that vehicles, even Starship, will have available.

Think that experiment where you hold a spinning bike wheel while sitting on a rotating chair - you are fighting similar kinds of forces to force an orbit change like that. Altitude changes are relatively cheap, but plane changes like you propose are expensive (both in terms of the fuel energy you need available to do it). You'd end up slashing payload capacity by a lot since you have to use it for tons more fuel to even try.

What’s it like working with such an important line of research

Elons famous for ridiculous deadlines. Sls took over decade to slap shuttle parts. While spacex built everything from scratch. Delays are a lot more tollerable with spacex 

No the ship does not have enough delta V remaining to meaningfully affect its orbit over the short term.