If you say 2004 is the start of Orion, that’s a fair comparison, since 2004 was the first mention of the Constellation program.
And Starship is also constantly switching scope, from heavy launch vehicle to Mars lander to Moon lander to heavy launch vehicle. It doesn’t do any of those though, unlike Orion
The goal of Starship has always been (and still is) Mars. If the design can be easily adapted into a lunar lander or a LEO workhorse, that’s just a bonus.
Just quoting wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_design_history
If you say 2004 is the start of Orion, that’s a fair comparison, since 2004 was the first mention of the Constellation program.
And Starship is also constantly switching scope, from heavy launch vehicle to Mars lander to Moon lander to heavy launch vehicle. It doesn’t do any of those though, unlike Orion
The goal of Starship has always been (and still is) Mars. If the design can be easily adapted into a lunar lander or a LEO workhorse, that’s just a bonus.