[jlmorton]

There is absolutely no chance Starship is developed using steel without Musk. There is absolutely zero chance that Mechazilla would exist without Musk. These are massive elements of the Starship program.

Now, it's true enough that he didn't literally _build_ these things. He is the CEO. Steve Jobs didn't build the iPhone.

But these programs are very obviously shaped by Musk to a large degree.

[JumpCrisscross]

> no chance Starship is developed using steel without Musk

What are you basing this on? It was carbon fibre or steel. SpaceX tried carbon. The bake was too inconsistent, so they went with steel. This was the stated and obvious design path since Falcon Heavy’s design trajectory plateaued.

[jlmorton]

Steel is by no means obvious. No one else in the industry uses it. (No one else in the industry uses carbon fiber, either, except things like fairings).

The obvious choice that everyone uses is aluminum, or various alloys, like aluminum-lithium.