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Reusable Starship claims 100-150 metric tonnes payload to earth orbit. A Boeing 747 is 238 metric tonnes. BUT how much tonnage can the Starship land back on earth in a single "hop"?

I guess the ship attitude & atmospheric drag can help to reduce the extra fuel needed to land the payload, but not right at the end...

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I think a key part is they need less fuel since they aren't going all the way to orbit. Getting to orbit is the difficult part and it's why they need the whole gigantic first stage booster.

When they first developed the second stage they did some low altitude test flights with just the second stage and it went miles into the air IIRC, albeit with no payload. It's possible that once they deliver the payload, the second stage might have enough fuel to fly back to some drone ship or something.

If they go through with in-orbit refueling, shouldn't it be pretty close to the same in both directions? My, I did physics because it was a degree requirement, layman's understanding is that the work is going to be pretty much the same in both directions.

Atmospheric drag increases superlinearly so it plays a significant role in slowing down the vehicle when you're moving at large fractions of orbital velocity.

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