Nothalogh

It would be a false dichotomy if it weren't the de-facto standard operating procedure of all the parties heretofore involved, for the last fifty years. They blew up five, if I remember correctly, Atlas SM-65s before they got one to fly. THAT is the standard I want to see a return to.

That means you just aren't producing enough thrust to go with all that ISP.

Anyone who says otherwise is self evidently a heretic

Come on, now, you're a KSP player. Anything downrange of the pad is some kind of success, when unmanned. And any landing you walk away from is a good landing, when manned. And all this wailing and gnashing of teeth is childish at best, the alternative is to do this the post-Apollo NASA way, which would add twenty years and ten times the budget for a quarter of the initially intended features. Sorry, not sorry, I don't want another Space Shuttle, and neither should you.

By exterminating humans?

Aye, but we're kind of stuck with the humans and their constructs. So that may as well be a law on par with that of physics.

Not entirely true, there is also the political dimension of any project, but that can be dealt with by bringing to bear a sufficient amount of shame and bullying.

Blue Origin would first have to build engines

Starship isn't beholden to NASA's design tomfoolery

This is the one that always sticks with me

If it doesn't register on the Richter scale, it's not a rocket.

Send multiple vehicles per transfer window, each trying a slightly different EDL pattern. We don't have time for your tomfoolery.

You dream too small

Ship is inherently vault. Build city on top of ship. Evacuate to ship. Launch city/ship.

Why not combine the two?

As I said here: Mars is where you want to build you fleet, for the aforementioned reasons.

I, for one, am an avowed proponent of stripmining Mars. It is the goldilocks zone factory planet. It has a thin atmo for easy ascent, but enough for aerobraking. It has low gravity for easy escape, but enough for conventional ore separation and smelting processes. It's in a relatively low energy cost orbital location, not too far in, not too far out. Muh microbes, muh terraforming... No, wh40k is my instruction manual, and anyone who complains is getting turned into a servitor.

You would be incorrect And here we get to saying the quiet part out loud. The point of all this is to filibuster with demands of compliance to unattainable standards.

No, that's literally what actually matters, the rest is the position of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

You think my position is about commercial vs governmental? No, not even close. I support any and all who are actually striving for meaningful progress towards the goal of the development and implementation of large scale human interplanetary capability.

Cool story, but we've been doing it your way for almost sixty years now, and it's not working.

Indeed. I think long term, earth should be turned into a prison for those who were against human expansion.

It's the only way, all other options lead to inaction, stagnation, and decay.

All other concerns must cede priority to the development and implementation of large scale human interplanetary capability. And those who would attempt to filibuster that goal with myriad technicalities are more morally detestable than those who would openly, directly, and physically vandalize such a project.

It's basically concern trolling, at an institutional level. And a way for individuals and organizations to make themselves relevant to an endeavor that they have no business being near.