Elon Musk in 2021: Starship Is So Hard, I Sometimes Wonder If We Can Actually Do It

Elon Musk, three years ago: Starship is so difficult that sometimes, I wonder whether we can actually do this.

“Man, Starship is a hard, hard, hard project. This is the biggest rocket ever made. It will have a thrust and mass double that of a Saturn V, which is the largest rocket to reach orbit. And it is intended to be fully and rapidly reusable.

This is a profound revolution in access to orbit. There has never been a fully reusable orbital launch vehicle.

This absorbs more of my mental energy than probably any other single thing. It is so preposterously difficult that there are times when I wonder whether we can actually do this.”

Interview with WSJ, December 7, 2021