NASA's big new rocket costs taxpayers $4 billion per launch. This rocket SpaceX built with their own money, costs about $200 million per launch. NASA's rocket puts 95 tons into space with 8 million pounds of thrust. SpaceX's new rocket is 16.7 million pounds of thrust and can put 150 tons into space and is fully reusable. Sure it has problems, but SpaceX will work them out.
Meanwhile SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has launched and landed 186 times and is on par to launch 80-90 times this year alone. It only puts about 20 tons into Space, but is the worlds workhorse for satellite launches, astronaut launches, and space station resupply. Most of the launches is putting Starlink satellites up to have world wide internet coverage, especially in rural and remote areas. Starlink alone right now makes SpaceX $1 billion per year in profits which they are throwing into this new Starship rocket development.
Back in 2012, Lockheed and Boeing and even NASA told SpaceX they were wasting their time trying to land a rocket booster. They blew up plenty, even had 2 Falcon 9's blow up early on. They worked out the bugs and now it is the most reliable rocket (Falcon 9) on earth. Musk doesn't give up, he will get the Starship operational, probably by the end of the year. He already has several already built. He waited almost 2 years to get FAA approval to launch.
Musk wants to colonize Mars because it has almost every raw material earth has except wood. Plants can be grown in greenhouses. Mars has a 24-12 hour day similar to earth and it has water but all frozen. The moon basically has no water. He said he would help NASA get back to the moon with Starship, and they want to use Starship for their lander on the moon because it can take 150 tons of supplies. One potential option for Starship is that it can hold 100 passengers if they wanted too, thus carrying colonists to Mars in the future. Starship will be built in 3 options. Cargo, crew, and tanker to refuel in orbit for travel to the moon or Mars. He also wants Starship to launch 200-300 Starlink satellites at a time, not the 40 or so with Falcon 9. He has approval from the FAA to launch 36,000 Starlink satellites. He only has launched around 2,500 so far using Falcon 9.
Starlink cost $500 for a satellite dish the size of a pizza, that is pointed straight up flat. It cost around $100 a month for internet access which includes streaming TV and is working with T-mobile to make a satellite cell phone to call anywhere with no dead zones. They have as of January over 1 million Starlink subscribers. Some countries won't allow him to sell the service, such as Russia, China, N. Korea, Iran, and Cuba. Some African countries and Middle Eastern countries. However, it has been reported that some have smuggled Starlinks into Russia and Iran. Ukraine has used them connected to drones as weapons against Russia.
