They also have contracts with NASA that could be cancelled the same way the lunar gateway was, like in-space refueling. Which is:
- completely unproven
- could affect other parts of their business: if they try it and mess up, the debris field of two Starships breaking up in medium orbit could wipe out significant parts of the starlink constellation (and other satellite operations too)...
NASA had a pretty consistent budget for 30+ years, and even if one contract gets canceled. SpaceX is by far best and most important NASA supplier, whatever NASA does with its budget, SpaceX would likely be involved.
And Starship primary mission is next generation Starlink, not NASA.
> the debris field of two Starships breaking up in medium orbit could wipe out significant parts of the starlink constellation
Do you have any evidence of that?
NASA wouldn't allow operations that could potentially destroy most sats around the world in any plan it signs.
Have you done any actual analysis on the flight path, how and where docking would happen, the decay orbits and so on, do you have anything modeled? If not I going with NASA and SpaceX analysis over yours.
> How much does that hold when Elon has the ear of a know-nothing president who is absolutely unconcerned by any evidence?
Your argument is that SpaceX would destroy its own multi-billion $ project?
And I do not believe any other crap at all. No space mining, manufacturing, moon/mars/venus/mercury/europa bases...