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Comment by margalabargala | Hacker News Reader

I think it's actually a reasonable comparison.

To OP's point, Artemis has cost $92 billion over 14 years. This has produced exactly one launch.

It's hard to put an exact timeline on Starship since a lot of its development overlaps with Falcon 9 using the same components, but it's inarguable that it has cost one tenth Artemis so far.

I agree that Starship has been plagued by delays and the capabilities are so far mostly just talk. However, it has flown a number of times, and I would be willing to make a strong bet that it will orbit the moon with real payload long before it catches up to Artemis in budget.

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Starship has not yet flown even a fraction of what SLS has, so I think the comparison is premature. If it takes another ten years to get to a point that it can successfully achieve its Artemis objectives, I doubt it will remain cheaper than SLS. And given that it has already been delayed way beyond the first estimates for when it might be ready (it was supposed to have flown to Mars with astronauts on board by 2022, I believe), I don't see why another 10 years is any worse an estimate than others.

SLS has flown once. What are you talking about?

SLS has had one fully functional operational flight, where it deployed satellites in lunar orbit. Starship has had 0 operational flights, and a bunch of dummy test flights without payload and without even attempting to reach LEO.

Sure, but it's a bit disingenuous to one one hand have one successful flight, and on the other hand 11 test flights of varying success (reaching space but not orbit) and dismiss the latter because the former has technically flown infinitely many times more successful real flights. The absolute value is so low, 1 vs zero.

You can take another tack then - kilometers traveled (while in control of the rocket) multiplied by payload. This should be a more comparable metric, and the conclusion will be the same without the pesky 0: Starship tests have flown only a fraction of what SLS has achieved in its single successful flight.

Why do you think that's a more comparable metric? One of these rockets has flown one production flight, the other has flown 11 test flights. If you pick a metric that blatantly is measuring "production launches" you've decided the outcome before you look at it.

You're arguing with the same intellectual honestly of someone saying Starship is 11x better because it has left the ground 11x more times.

> the capabilities are so far mostly just talk

lol what? They've caught and successfully reflown the super heavy booster, and they've mostly successfully done a soft landing of Starship in the sea. How is that remotely "just talk"?

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, things like delivering a real payload or orbiting the earth.

Yes they've reflown a caught rocket, and they've soft landed in the ocean. I can do those things with a paper airplane.

Not at orbital speeds you can’t. You’re being deliberately obtuse.

I'm being hyperbolic about the paper airplanes, but I stand by my original point.

It is simultaneously true that Starship's capabilities are on track, and are at this moment just talk. I would bet that Starship will deliver within 10% of claimed specs, before 2030. But none of those have currently been proven.

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