One of the most important technological breakthroughs of the past year occurred on October 13. Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket, has launched into space from a launch pad in Texas.. Its main stage, which is a Super Heavy launch vehicle (the upper stage is a spacecraft) reached an altitude of 65 km and returned back at a speed exceeding the speed of sound. Before landing, the launch vehicle restarted its engines and slowed down until it hovered above the launch tower from which it was launched just 7 minutes earlier.. The manipulators grabbed the giant launch vehicle, which happened for the first time. Thus, it was proven that Starship can be reused. This breakthrough marks a new milestone in the history of space exploration, and in this space race NASA is already losing to SpaceX, writes The Guardian.

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Another successful test of the Starship rocket system marks the beginning of a new era of affordable heavy rockets that could reduce the cost of scientific research in space, experts say.

Elon Musk's company has already reduced the cost of launching a payload into low-Earth orbit by 10 times. Once Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built and designed to be reusable, is fully operational later this year, we can expect further reductions in the cost of spaceflight..

The Starship rocket is expected to be able to launch into space every two or three weeks.. SpaceX engineers have learned to recover and reuse Starship's main stage and will do the same with its upper stage, that is, the spacecraft, this year, experts say.

A total of 25 flights are planned for this year, which is a surprisingly ambitious program. For scientists, the advantages of Starship are obvious. The cost of space missions could drop further, allowing for research in space that scientists simply couldn't afford..

Starship's success could ruin NASA's Space Launch System (SLS). This is an extremely expensive rocket, which also can only be used once. Each launch is estimated to cost billions of dollars, while the Starship launch is estimated to cost only $10 million. Many scientists predict that Starship will render SLS an obsolete rocket within a few years..

Elon Musk has high hopes for Starship, and they have less to do with his scientific aspirations and more to do with his plans to use the giant rocket to begin the eventual colonization of Mars. Last September, Musk promised that SpaceX would launch the first unmanned Starship rockets to Mars in two years.. If successful, they will be followed by manned flights in four years.. Ultimately, Musk suggests that a colony with a population of up to a million people could be established on Mars within 30 years..

Some scientists are skeptical about Musk's plan, because the journey to Mars itself, as well as the creation of a colony on a practically uninhabitable planet, is a difficult task.

Focus has already written that in 2027 the Starship spacecraft will help NASA astronauts make the first landing on the lunar surface in the 21st century.

Focus also wrote that Elon Musk also plans to use the Starship rocket to transport passengers on Earth. Flights between continents can take 30 to 40 minutes.