Elon Musk's Starship is a game of numbers. It's not just a flex, it's a necessity

The Starship Super Heavy Rocket is the first vehicle ever created to solve the fundamental problem with sending people into deep space.

It's the most powerful rockets to leave the Earth have been NASA 's Saturn 5 in the 1960s and their Space Launch System in November 2022 .

The Super Heavy booster is already generating more than double the thrust of the old Saturn 5.

It is a monumental increase in rocket capability and SpaceX is already developing a version three of their Raptor engine that will push the envelope even further.

The Starship is making the absolute most out of the rocket technology that is available today .

The problem for Starship is that the best rocket engine technology they have to work with is chemical propulsion.

The potential for a chemical rocket is limited by physics, and we've basically hit the plateau already.

This type of engine is something that NASA has been studying on and off for decades now.

With their updated nuclear thermal rocket engine project Draco , NASA is aiming to deploy a nuclear spacecraft within the next 5 years .

Solar power isn't going to cut it on Mars , at least not until we can figure out how to build a gigantic solar farms on an alien planet.