Why SpaceX catching Starship will change everything about space travel

Now, that might just sound like buzzwords, and to be honest, with any other company out there, it probably would be. But SpaceX has consistently shown a renewed vigor for space travel and innovation when it comes to successes like this. And being able to catch the booster for a massive rocket like Starship right at the pad where it took off is going to save a lot of travel time to get it back where it needs to be to be ready for another launch.

This could mean quicker launches than we’re currently seeing from the Starship rockets, which would allow for more missions beyond the usual scope. This kind of thing would prove especially useful for NASA’s Artemis missions, which will rely on a version of Starship to deliver astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since the 1970s. With a more effective catch system for the Starship boosters, SpaceX could theoretically outperform NASA’s current SLS system, which has already proven to be costly and cumbersome.

But this isn’t exactly a new idea, either. SpaceX has been catching the boosters for some of its other rockets for roughly nine years now. While those catches are impressive, they’re usually done out at sea, as I mentioned above, or on concrete slabs miles away from the launch pad. This time around, though, SpaceX performed the feat directly over its launch pad. Which severely cuts down the time needed to recover the booster.

And with Starship also set to play a part in SpaceX’s plans to eventually put humans on Mars, being able to catch the Starship boosters would hopefully allow for more timely missions—perhaps even paving the way for weekly launches at some point.