I don't think there's a simple answer to this. It's a lot of things all at once.

It's pretty obvious that the programme has had issues that I don't think SpaceX were prepared for, in the parts that aren't the a priori obvious hard problems. In that sense, it just hasn't been as well executed as they'd like. Especially their difficulties with weight and payload that are probably why they frontloaded so many design changes before letting it settle.

Then there's some significant fraction where SpaceX really has intentionally done the 'rapid iteration' thing, and keeps flying unfinalized designs in boundary-testing ways on an in-progress factory system. For all Starship has flown badly, it's not like even the easier competition is flying much well in the meantime. Starship flies absurdly frequently.

And this is in part that SpaceX aren't just building a rocket with 2-3x the liftoff thrust of a Saturn V, aren't just building a rocket with first stage reuse, aren't just building a rocket with unprecedented complete second stage reuse, they're also building it to be cheap and mass produced in a factory. Big is hard. Reuse is hard. Cheap is hard. Factories are hard. Makes sense the rocket is hard!

Then there's also the point that while Starship has been a mixed bag, it has also achieved a lot. Its last flight was extremely solid, and really did show the whole mission profile down to soft and positionally-accurate drill landings of both stages. Nobody else has done what Starship has done.

"Shut down SLS" is a political issue, not a technical issue. If SLS was surviving solely on its technical capability, SLS program would start getting cut down the moment Falcon Heavy has proven its mettle.

There was a chance at getting that done with Jared Isaacman, but it looks like Team Pork Barrel has put its foot down, and that just isn't going to happen now.

If the goal of Starship development program was just "make it to the orbit", they could have done it quite a few flights ago - as early as Flight 4. Instead, they keep testing first stage RTLS, reentry profiles and heat shields - neither of which is a requirement for "make it to the orbit".

Starship is much larger, much more ambitious, and SpaceX can now afford to burn through more hardware than they ever could. They are setting harder goals and taking more risks with the test program.

I am not even a rocket scientist but I heard starship was described as a ridiculously hard and super ambitious program. So it's not unexpected that it would take a while for the program to mature.

Falcon 9 was SpaceX's second rocket, but it also underwent several major changes before it becomes the workhorse that launches more than the rest of the world combined.

Again, I have no idea what the difficulties actually entails.

Was the falcon 9 that much faster? They also had issues with the initial launches of falcon 1 and 9. Plus they did not start with reusable rockets like they are here - it took years and many landing failures to get there. And of course the scale is a totally separate ballpark - falcon was in a scale that was well known, starship is in a scale rarely worked with.

Probably the closest comparable rocket to starship would be the N1, and that never successfully flew

According to Wiki

Falcon 9 was announced in 2005

First launch in 2010

By the third flight they were delivering to the ISS

Starship .. it's a bit unclear when they started designing it b/c they kept changing the design. But It's been in design for ~10 years.

> As of August 26, 2025, Starship has launched 10 times, with 5 successful flights and 5 failures.

10 launches.. and not even in orbit. Not to speak of ISS. I'm sure they'll make it work eventually, but I would expect with experience the design time would decrease, not increase. Starting from zero, making the first rocket engine has got to be much much harder than making an improved iteration (even if more complex)

Falcon 9 was a fairly conventional design using technology similar to Falcon 1, both using liquid oxygen and kerosene engines similar to those used in the 1960s.

Starship on the other hand is pioneering new stuff - hopefully the world's first fully reusable rocket which no one has managed before.

You may want to check your premise. Just because you weren't aware of the early stages of Falcon development doesn't mean it went quickly. Not even accounting for the fact this is orders of magnitude more complex and will be a huge leap forward in space logisstics if they can get it (and the reusability) to work

Falcon 9 development was announced in 2005, first successful booster landing in 2015.

Starship development time is much harder to pin down and it has changed a lot more. A post-Falcon 9 rocket was announced in 2012, but it was very different (e.g., initially meant to be carbon composite, changed to steel in 2018, went through 3-4 name changes). Starship seems much more exploratory, pushing the boundaries of what has been done in rocketry. Structural material is unusual, fuel is unusual, engines are unusual, using tower to catch rockets is unusual, reentering and reusing booster is unusual, size and weight of rocket and thrust is unsuaul, etc.

Starship's first booster landing (tower catch) was in 2024, so even if we took the start of development as 2012, that is only 2 years later than Falcon 9 for ~same milestone. Falcon 9 of course was flying commercial payloads for some time before booster reuse, which puts it well ahead of Starship on that metric, but I would say SpaceX has been less concerned with getting something to space, they have a reliable solution for that already which is still well ahead of competitors for cost effectiveness, and the company is financially in a much better place than it was when trying to get Falcon 9 working.

Starship development is still working on returning the second stage and orbital refueling, which are beyond Falcon 9's capabilities. It's possible it could have been launching commercial payloads by now if that's what they had concentrated on (without reusing the second stage). They have demonstrated second stage engine re-light and payload deployment, which is basically is needed to put Starlink satellites into orbit.

They're making pretty steady progress. It's off what they had hoped, but so is every rocket company and government rocket project.The rocket is the largest machine ever to fly. It's approaching 3x the size and power of the Saturn V at launch. The engines are like nothing ever made before in terms of power and efficiency. It seems likely to significantly reduce cost per kg to orbit beyond the revolutionary Falcon 9 even if it doesn't hit their goals (which might be unrealistic) of 2 orders of magnitude cheaper, 1 order of magnitude might be possible ($2000/kg -> $200/kg) even without second stage reuse. With orbital refueling it promises to reduce costs of payload to Moon and other planets and outer space. This could spur development of scientific instruments and experiments that are cheaper or more capable (or both), and exploration of space.

I think it's very exciting, not just for the promise of continuing better and cheaper communications for us on earth, but for all the science and exploration it could help to unlock.

It does seem like they're having trouble with re-entry and reusing the second stage. I hope they can work that out. I'm sure they can get it to reenter and land (they essentially already have twice), I'm just quite skeptical of the promise of a few hours reflight turnaround time. I suspect that if that continues to cause them trouble, we're likely to see them start to fly payloads next year without second stage reuse working yet.