[m4rtink]

It will be definitely interesting too watch Starship development progress - even just because it's actually in a big part a lot simpler vehicle than an airliner.

You see, there are those very top notch and quite a bit complex raptor engines powering it, but modern efficient jet engines are also pretty complex. The rest is basically "just" two cans of propelant and some very basic cold gas thrusters and big but simple aerosurfaces.

Also while indeed the energies Starship needs to handle at any given time are much bigger, it needs to handle them for minutes at a time (launch, landing) versus an airliner fighting air resistance and 10 different types of weather during a 12 hour transcontinental flight. Not to mention passenger and crew amenities you dont need to lug with you with a ~30 minute hop time.

Rocket engines also have their own oxidizer on board so FOD ingestion or birdstrike is not an issue.

And for launch and landing you need an isolated but rather simple and small area compared to the many kilometers of runways, taxiways and other airport infrastructure.

Lastly they run on liquid oxygen & methane, which might be actually cheaper and easier to get than jet grade kerosene, at least over time.

So indeed, Starship definitely is rocket science but it also does not have many pain points of modern airliners.

[sudosysgen]

Airliners can glide. Rockets can't. That's your big difference right there.

Wings are also way simpler than rockets.

You also have way more time to try to fix or workaround issues.

Reliability wise, airplanes will always be much better than rockets, especially if you include a propulsive landing.

[m4rtink]

Sure, gliding helped to avoid many catastrophes (Gimli Glider, Hudson miracle, etc.) but the thing is - does it make sense for a rocketship ? On a point to point flight you are going to land (or impact) somewhere and you need a couple working engines to land safely, the same as you need working control systems to glide to an airport.

Still, Starship does not really need an airport for emergency landing - anything reasonably level will very quickly become a landing pad once the raptors get going for landing.

Also as for wings - those seem very complex to me on a modern airliner - flaps, spoilers, ailerons, wingless, integral fuel tanks, etc. In comparison to that starship is a lightweight water tower with a couple metal barn doors attached - much simpler structure with far less moving parts.

[sudosysgen]

Wings are certainly not complex. They are passive, and ailerions/flapse/spoilers are hydraulically operated.

[benhurmarcel]

There are requirements for commercial flights which would be extremely hard to achieve with a rocket architecture.

For instance, you cannot have a single failure (whatever its probability) that leads to a catastrophic condition. Meaning, for every component and at every moment, you have to assume the component fails and still have to ensure you don't kill your passengers.