How should we think about Starship?

Last Friday, SpaceX tested the third version of its Starship rocket. It was the twelfth Starship flight overall and the first launch of this rocket in the V3 configuration, a substantially new design. It went like a lot of Starship test flights have gone—well enough to build hopes, but not quite well enough to declare success and start colonizing the Galaxy. Opinion around Starship has a tendency to polarize. On one end is an extreme enthusiasm and a conviction that Starship will revolutionize space flight by bringing launch costs down by orders of magnitude. The rocket’s fans point to SpaceX’s immense success in operating the Falcon 9, the world’s first reusable commercial rocket, along with the rapid progress Starship showed during early flight tests in 2023. Launches in that ‘V1’ configuration showed that Starship could reach orbit1 and successfully re-enter the atmosphere. Both stages of the spacecraft (the Super Heavy first stage and the Starship upper stage) demonstrated…