> The difference is that Starship is so cheap it makes both of those options feasible. Shuttle's reusability was supposed to make it cheap, but it ended up costing $1.5 billion per flight.
But that's exactly what people believed about the space shuttle before it launched as well. Let's wait to see Starship actually work before predicting it will be enormously cheap. As it stands, that cheapness is entirely predicated on a completely unrealistic level of reusability (multiple launches per day with the same rocket, when even Falcon 9 requires weeks or months between launches of the same rocket).
You don't have to take Elon's word to know that it'll be cheap. It's being built in the open air under dozens of cameras streaming 24/7 on Youtube. Calculating the time & materials cost for Starship is straightforward.
But that's exactly what people believed about the space shuttle before it launched as well. Let's wait to see Starship actually work before predicting it will be enormously cheap. As it stands, that cheapness is entirely predicated on a completely unrealistic level of reusability (multiple launches per day with the same rocket, when even Falcon 9 requires weeks or months between launches of the same rocket).