Not only could it make many unmanned flights as a sat deployment vehicle, but the manned variants operating on the Moon would have no atmosphere for parachutes.

Finally, capsules and reusable boosters provide an alternative to transfer crew between LEO and Earth’s surface, avoiding the need for crewed ships to either launch or land.

Stating safety is the “guiding factor” is easy. Do you care to elaborate? How do you stack up the risks as you perceive them between water and land touchdowns? Are you going to consider single or multiple points of failure? Site availability due to adverse conditions.? Emergencies?

Elon’s decision was the result of a process where he had to consider safety along with cost. How much does safety cost?

I’m am really not trying to be antagonistic but saying that “safety” is the dominant factor in decision making needs to be filled out a little. A lot of people embrace the same type of thinking and I really don’t understand how they feel comfortable to say such things. Is this a really considered opinion? How does this work in practice?

Are you aware that Starship as planned has no emergency escape system? And a failure in one of multiple interacting systems during a broomstick handing results in the death of the crew (which is going to happen eventually because nothing is really “perfectly safe”)? How does safety come into play in these circumstances? Should Elon abandon his plans because they aren’t safe?

I’m honestly interested in how you see these things. Anyone else, please feel free to chime in.

LTC SDS: You are right. I forgot about that first demo mission. I have edited the post, correcting it.

I wonder if a Dragon crew could survive a solid landing.

Despite all the screwups you managed to do the right thing.

Congratulations to all the hard working engineers, technician and administrative types and everyone else that contributed to this effort.

Fixing stuff is hard.

I hope Starliner can find a place in the future.