Starship has a slightly larger internal volume than the ISS, so yeah, a single starship is directly comparable to the current largest space station we've got
That doesn’t make it comparable to a space station any more than arguing here makes people rocket scientist.
https://www.humanmars.net/2016/10/spacex-its-spaceship-docki...
In fact Starship may make space stations obsolete, for the same reason we don't have anchored floating research stations out on the sea that we go back and forth to using little boats. We use research ships instead.
That process could be repeated N times to quickly build a station that’d dwarf the ISS.
You’re talking about metal tube that never reached the orbit. You thing you just need “slight” customization to make it a space station?
That thing doesn’t fly yet, is not human rated, has no life support capabilities, has unknown lifetime in space, has no propulsion system that would keep it in orbit for long period of time and bazillions of other things.
It’s just a metal tube at this point. I know it’s cool to fantasize what it could be, but so far its metal tube that doesn’t even fly and is hugely behind schedule.
And it’s built by guy, who’s known for overhyping.
I mean when you have a company that's shipped nothing and they are saying big things, that's one thing. But when you have a company that's actively launching and reusing more rockets than everyone else combined, that's another.
All the things you've listed are previously solved problems that have existing solutions. SpaceX isn't even inventing anything new here.
>That thing doesn’t fly yet
Starship has flown and landed in low altitude flights. It's the booster+starship that's in testing now.
None of that matters when you try to make an argument that it's basically a replacement for space station, with few simple tweaks.
You can argue if it will get to Mars of you want. But silly to argue that anything that can get to Mars with human occupants won't be able to also orbit the earth with human occupants
Sure, it may, maybe. But those are 2 very different use-cases, and it's not given or easy by any way.
For example Ford makes cars and trucks.
But that doesn't mean it's a viable replacement for space stations.
Those are 2 totally different topics and it boggles my mind how people can write whole science fiction story around and argue that it's basically a fact.