What core technological breakthrough is required for the Starship vehicle to achieve the necessary scale of traffic?
Full and rapid reusability of both stages
The achievement of the ultimate goal hinges almost entirely on the operationalization of the Starship system, which requires one specific, core technological breakthrough: full and rapid reusability. Conventional rocketry, which relies on expendable components, results in launch costs that are prohibitively high for the massive volume of traffic required to construct a Martian city. Starship aims to apply the successful initial concept demonstrated by the Falcon 9 first stage—reusability—to its logical extreme by making both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage fully and quickly reusable. This high rate of reuse, akin to an airplane, is the economic lever needed to drastically reduce launch costs and unlock the feasibility of colonization.
