[inglor_cz]

Massive. The designers of Starship studiously avoided all the problems that made Space Shuttle expensive to refurbish:

a. Cheaper, more durable material (stainless steel).

b. Cheaper, easier to manufacture engines.

c. Easier to use fuel (methane is much "tamer" than hydrogen).

d. Standardized heat shield with much smaller requirements for manual work.

[Tepix]

> d. Standardized heat shield with much smaller requirements for manual work.

We'll have to see how it works out.

[inglor_cz]

It is a very daunting problem no doubt, maybe the hardest one, but I also don't doubt that the end form of Starship will require way, way less than 20 000 man-hours per turnaround (as the Space Shuttle required) to refurbish the heat shield. They simply cannot afford that.

[PaulHoule]

The way they are going they can try 5 different ones that fail until they find one that doesn't.

Contrast that to the Space Shuttle which required a human crew to flight test anything.