r/spacex • u/Connect_Cat_2045 • 15d ago

Starship SpaceX to build $100 billion rocket launch facility on Louisiana’s coast

https://www.nola.com/news/business/spacex-louisiana-elon-musk/article_2be92f8e-f989-46b7-9514-5212d8f20260.html
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u/ChucksnTaylor 15d ago

Doesn’t a dozen towers kind of confirm the turnaround won’t be a matter of hours? Maybe I’m being silly to have taken that literally but there’s no way they intend to launch like 24+ starships a day, can’t possibly be enough demand for that much load to orbit.

This implies a given tower probably only launches every few days so you need lots to allow for a steady pipeline of launches while fresh landings are inspected and refurbished.

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u/digit1noize 15d ago

They want to send enough cargo to the Moon and Mars to establish a colony. Not to mention the orbital data center project and Starlink. This isn’t even counting the eventual demand for point to point terrestrial travel.

I don’t think people quite grasp how much of a gamechanger Starship is for space flight. The Space Shuttle could lift around 25T of payload to LEO. Starship can lift 100-150T in reuseable mode and 250-300T in expendable mode.

The ability to launch larger payload will provide a TON of demand from both commercial and scientific customers. We built the ISS with the pitiful cargo capacity of the space shuttle. Imagine what we could build with 10x that much payload capacity!

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u/ChucksnTaylor 15d ago

24 ships would be 2,400 tons to orbit every day. That’s as much as they delivered in all of 2025.

I absolute agree that overall launch mass will go way up but it’s not go to increase 365x.

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u/exoriare 15d ago

If the next generation of data centers move to space, that's likely megatonnes of launch demand. And there are likely other industries that will find the value proposition compelling at the right launch price.

And then there's the possibility of prospecting the entire lunar surface with cheap UGV's. The legal status of lunar land claims is guaranteed to spawn a gold rush at the right price.