Maybe I should add, again, that Starship is completely different to anything ever tried yet. Many experts in the traditional space industry still scoff at the concept. They doubt, it can ever successfully fly orbital at all. Much less at the cost SpaceX is trying to reach.

There is the possibility that SpaceX fails and Starship indeed never works as planned. ​But that's not different to any other project Elon Musk has ever started. In the eyes of the experts they were all doomed to failure. Until they succeeded.

If it works out as planned, Starship can fly to orbit at cost below $ 5 million. Maybe 200t of propellant to orbit for $ 2 million. 100t of payload to the surface of Mars for $20-30 million. These are marginal cost. SpaceX will need to charge higher prices than that to make a profit and recoup their development investment.

While NASA struggles to send a payload larger than 1t to Mars, anything larger than the Curiosity rover. NASA tried and so far failed to develop a concept that can increase Mars landed paylod to 3-5 t.