[kylecordes]

Assuming Starship succeeds, hopefully at that point other players will adopt the basic design, iterate and improve, then forcefully compete. I'm still surprised that, all these years after Falcon 9 obviously works, there isn't a "clone" on the market. (I am aware there are couple of small "new space" companies working on something similar.)

[somenameforme]

Agreed. I think you can even take it further than other new small space companies. Boeing and China would both absolutely love to replicate SpaceX's tech, and both have (relative to SpaceX) practically unlimited resources to do so, yet both are still nowhere near them yet, and not for lack of trying.

From an outsider's perspective it's quite difficult to understand what the big barrier is.