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I would say they are there. Sure, they're having some burn through on the flaps, but they managed to hit their virtual landing spot anyways, and if they caught a slightly damaged ship they could study that damage better, repair it, and refurbish the ship.

But I imagine that by IFT6 they'll have nailed the flap burn through problem.




They can't have burn through like that and achieve the kind of rapid reuse Starship needs to be useful outside low to mid Earth orbit, to go outside of there it requires a large number of flights to refuel the one Starship that will go on to Moon/Mars. Without the ability to refuel for Moon or beyond trips Starship is trapped in LEO/MEO because it's hauling around so much extra mass for it's own reusability.

IMO a better use for it might be to ferry up large pieces of purpose built craft with less excess dry weight. A single reusable Starship launch can put the entire mass of the Apollo craft needed to make it from LEO to the Moon and back into LEO. Put a craft in two launches and dock it in orbit and you've got a huge capability to put a lot of mass onto the moon and still use the cheap cost to orbit Super Heavy gives.


At the rate at which SpaceX makes progress, that flap burn-through is a non-issue.




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