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Comment by pennomi | Hacker News Reader

Surely the could put a traditional upper stage on Super Heavy and just go directly to the moon, no? I’m not sure what the obsession with second stage reuse is, because you lose almost all your margin.

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Falcon Heavy (as its name implies) is not capable as a super-heavy lift vehicle. Past GTO, it can only carry 18 tons. You need more than double that to reach the Moon and come back, as NASA did in the 1960s.

I'm not sure what the obsession with airplane reuse is. Why not just build a new one for each flight?

You don’t gain additional margin throwing away an airplane. Reuse is a lovely idea but the rocket equation is a harsh mistress.

Space X cares way more about reusability than the moon, they're not actually in a race to the moon. Step 1: build the best general solution. Step 2: do everything

You're confused. Elon said two weeks ago that they have given up on Mars and the Moon is the goal they're currently working on. He said it will probably take them another decade to catch up to NASA of the 1960s by reaching the Moon with a real super-heavy rocket that actually works.

He said moon first, not no Mars. And a decade to build a moon city, not to get there.

However what people say and their real reasons aren't always the same.

I assume Issacman went around to everyone and convinced them to say they're all switching on the moon, add another test flight to delay things, and in return they'll switch to using Starship in the future as they will cancel Block 1B of Artemis

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