[avmich]

I hope Blue Origin succeeds too, but I'm not sure which mission profiles wouldn't be served best by the Starship in comparison to other launchers. There could be some ultra-light ones, where the cost for the whole launch is less than refueling the Starship, but...

[imtringued]

Obviously any mission that goes beyond LEO that does not aeorbrake at the destination, because that means you're expending an upper stage with aerodynamic surfaces for no reason.

Also anything that does a direct TLI or TMI, because you will have to stop for in-orbit refuelling.

[avmich]

The cost to get to LEO dominates in most, if not all, launches, and it's relatively trivial to add a booster stage which solves additional delta-v problems while being cost preferential to alternatives.

Maybe SpaceX will make those stages, if the market would interest them. Maybe fellow companies like Impulse Space would manage those requests. Starship still looks like a probable winner in the area.

[quotemstr]

Huh? If Starship can cheaply lift 150T to LEO, you can allocate some of that 150T to a propulsion system.

[basementcat]

That means the customer has to buy an additional propulsion stage (plus time for integration testing and insurance in case it damages the launch vehicle, in case it becomes reusable). Also, it is not yet clear what the LEO payload capability of the vehicle is.

[quotemstr]

The cost of an expendable third stage is surely more than made up for the brute force cost savings of being able to launch 150T to LEO for the cost of fuel and a car wash.

[basementcat]

I think it depends on the situation. It is not yet clear if 150T to LEO is real (and even if it is, you're likely sharing it with a bunch of other customers who might not want to fly with another rocket motor unless it has gone through quite a bit of vetting and paperwork; Shuttle banned the use of solid rocket motor 3rd stages after the Challenger accident) and it is not yet clear what the cost for a typical customer is going to be. Rocket engines designed to start in a vacuum are more difficult and expensive to develop and test than engines designed to operate closer to STP.