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Comment by return_to_monke | Hacker News Reader

And SLS is a rocket that is built, and already launched to space. Starship is a fewer dream of Musk, launching in August, no, September, no October, no November or like, soon

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Cut Elon some slack: SLS was supposed to launch in 2016, so it was 6 years behind schedule.

And Elon is supposed to fly people to the moon in 2023. But keep in mind, Elon has been talking about Starship for longer than the SLS was being planned. Starship (under other names) was officially announced and work on the Raptor engines Starship uses started at the same time as the SLS.

Raptor is a breakthrough engine. If NASA with nation state resources and 23B is 6 years late, let’s cut SpaceX some slack for building a profitable launch business with multiple successful vehicles while also being very close with Starship.

> As of 2019, only three full-flow staged combustion rocket engines had ever progressed sufficiently to be tested on test stands; the Soviet Energomash RD-270 project in the 1960s, the US government-funded Aerojet Rocketdyne Integrated powerhead demonstration project in the mid-2000s,[6] and SpaceX's flight capable Raptor engine first test-fired in February 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staged_combustion_cycle

If you want to learn more

https://youtu.be/LbH1ZDImaI8

I don't see how the breakthroughness of the Raptor engine is relevant. It's one of the reasons that Starship is cheaper to launch. If you want to say "without that, Starship would be operational" you also have to say "without that, Starship would be more expensive"

Fever dream, and yes, since Tom Mueller left their ability to build reliable engines has declined substantially. Elon's inflating ego is going to get him burned. Unfortunately he's not a reliable road to the Moon and Mars.

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