What are the origins of the Starship program? Interplanetary travel has been embedded in the DNA of SpaceX practically since its inception. Elon Musk has talked about developing a heavy-lift rocket capable of carrying many tons of mass to low Earth orbit, the moon, and even farther for two decades. As early as 2005, Musk was publicly discussing his plans to build a rocket with a payload capacity of 100 tons to send to low Earth orbit. The rocket now known as Starship has gone under a few different names: the “BFR” and “BFS” (Big F—ing Rocket/Ship or Big Falcon Rocket/Ship, depending on who you ask); the Mars Colonial Transporter; and the Interplanetary Transport System. In July 2019, the small second-stage prototype called “Starhopper” completed a small hop for the first time; that was followed by the first large-scale demonstrator, called SN15, which completed a high-altitude test flight for the first time in May 2021. Of course, it hasn’t all been rosy: The company has also exploded a fair few prototypes along the way, and its first and second integrated flight tests in April 2023 and November 2023 ended in fiery midair explosions. Image Credits:SpaceX The Starship program has accelerated in recent years thanks to two main changes: the launch and operation of Starlink, SpaceX’s internet satellite constellation, which provides critical revenue to fuel Starship development, and a $4 billion Human Landing System (HLS) award from NASA to develop a version of Starship to land humans on the moon for the Artemis program. Which leads us to the next question … Why does Starship matter? Starship is often understood as one billionaire’s pet project, but that is a deep misreading of the purpose of Starship or the role it could play in the future of the space economy. Regardless of when Starship might enter commercial operations, pretty much every industry expert agrees that it has the potential to fundamentally transform the space economy. As mentioned above, no other launch vehicle has ever been fully reusable, and those that are partially reusable don’t come close to the rocket’s mammoth size and power. What does that mean? Well, with the ability to launch cargo in bulk essentially solved, one can begin to imagine many incredible and heretofore unthinkable possibilities — provided the rest of the industry can keep up. Starship isn’t just a linchpin of growth for the commercial space industry. NASA also pinned the hopes of its Artemis program on the massive launch vehicle when it awarded SpaceX the HLS award in 2021, to deliver the crewed Starship capable of landing astronauts on the moon for the Artemis III mission. That award essentially transformed Starship from one company’s ambition into a major part of ensuring America’s continued supremacy in space. A rendering of spacex’s starship landing on the moon for nasa’s artemis program. Image Credits:NASA