In the more distant future, Musk wants Starship to make long-haul trips to Mars and back – about a nine month trip each way.
“You could conceivably have five or six people per cabin, if you really wanted to crowd people in. But I think mostly we would expect to see two or three people per cabin, and so nominally about 100 people per flight to Mars,” Musk said.
The idea is to send the Ship part of the vehicle into low-Earth orbit, and “park” it there. It could then be refuelled in orbit by a SpaceX ‘tanker’ – essentially another Ship without the windows – for its onward journey to Mars.
It’s also conceivable that Starship could be used to launch space telescopes.
The Hubble telescope is about the size of a bus, and the James Webb telescope is almost three times as big as that.
To put up thousands of satellites quickly, or a bigger telescope, you need a big rocket.
Finally, Starship has also been built to carry heavy loads needed to build space stations, and eventually, infrastructure for a human presence on the Moon.
