[colinng]

It is an amazing feat and can put the US on excellent footing.

But I’m not sure it is a fair comparison because the Space Shuttle also returned a crew with each launch. Starlink can afford to pay the cost of lost cargo, or diminished fuel reserves for sub-optimal launch altitude, on launch failure.

Still, I hope it continues on this excellent path and doesn’t fall into the complacency trap that skydivers have to watch for. It would be great if the Falcon 9 launches can fund the eventual completion of Starship, and that Starship goes on to become the first fully and rapidly reusable - and hopefully safest - ship.

[jqpabc123]

The space shuttle was the worst possible launch vehicle because the majority of the expense was directed toward safe guarding the obligatory crew.

Science fiction fans always point to the fact that only the space shuttle could have saved Hubble. Yes --- but at a cost that was far greater than simply replacing it with a better, more modern telescope.

Nothing about the Space Shuttle made any sense from a cost perspective.

[xnx]

> Nothing about the Space Shuttle made any sense from a cost perspective.

Definitely not from a payload or scientific perspective. Is there some national security and/or jobs program angle where it makes sense?

[rbanffy]

It was designed so that it could be launched from the US into a polar orbit, capture a soviet spy satellite, and land back to the US on the next orbit. This is why it has those enormous and heavy wings.

The shuttle-derived vehicles made a lot more sense. The shuttle could be used to ferry crew and modules for building space stations, but those two goals would be better served by two different types of spacecraft. It could return large objects from space and that was the one role where its unique abilities would shine, but that was never done.

NASA could have made continuous improvements to the heat shields, engines and other expendables to make flights cheaper, but never had the budget for it.