> Which space launch are you most excited for in 2023?

Whichever one delivers the first interesting payload. At the moment, that might be Psyche on Falcon Heavy, but things might change.

Don't get me wrong, the first launch of Starship will be inherently epic. However, I have a very pragmatic/utilitarian approach to space: I am less excited by the mere fact of a thing than I am by what that thing can accomplish. The first launch of Starship will provide data. The second launch of Starship might deploy Starlink satellites. But launch data is not immediately impactful for, available to or actionable by the average human. It will take from months to years for the data from the first Starship launch to touch the lives of John Doe or Ivan Petrovich. Deploying Starlink on Starship, while impactful, isn't inherently novel. More than half of SpaceX' 60 launches last year were Starlink payloads. SpaceX has also started deploying "Starlink v1.5" satellites due to the Starship delays. The mere fact of a Starlink v2 deployment from Starship is a good proof of conquest but not inherently revolutionary.

What would get me excited is a truly novel payload that capitalizes on the Starship promise. That promise, as I understand it, is to reduce $/kg to orbit. The direct implications of reducing launch costs are that:

• You can launch more missions;
• With greater frequency;
• With more capabilities; or
• With less complexity^1.

^1 in that, being less constrained for mass and volume, you can save money by not needing to miniaturise as much.

The first launch of Starship, or, for that matter, Vulcan and New Glenn, is a promise of things to come. But, to use JavaScript terminology, a promise that hasn't yet resolved. To be sure, it is historic, but you are still awaiting the result before you can use it.

I will be most excited for the first non-demonstrator, non-Starlink launch of Starship. Even if that launch is something like a $500k rover developed by some hitherto-unknown undergrad students from an engineering college in Nowhere County. I will be excited by that launch because the promise of Starship would have resolved.