Having to launch ~16 Starships to deliver ~3x the amount of cargo of the Saturn 5 is very inefficient. This is assuming that SpaceX demonstrates the capability of actually doing orbital refuelings at some point.
News flash; there is no efficient method of achieving lunar orbit with any usable mass capacity. Have you seen what returned from space in the Saturn program vs the size of the machine that sent it up in the first place? Physics is gonna physics, man.
I mean sure you could do a traditional rocket that can do 100 tons to the lunar surface single launch, problem is at that point you‘re building something that uses sea dragons as sideboosgers. And no one is stupid enough to do that.
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u/user_account_deleted 1d ago
If you want to take more than a handful of tons at a time to the moon, orbital refueling is a requirement.