Which booster will fly 30 times first?
15
Ṁ1085
2029
66%
Falcon 9
33%
Starship
0.5%
Other

The current record is 19 times by a Falcon 9 booster.

I'm mostly interested in real reuse rather than elaborate refurbishment like the shuttle program. I'm not sure how to capture that clearly in the conditions though.

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bought Ṁ100 Falcon 9 YES

There are currently 3 Falcon 9 boosters with 20+ flights, all of which are less than 4 years old. So one of them will probably reach 30 in 2-3 years unless there is some sort of wall of Falcon 9 booster lifespan that we haven't seen yet.

Seems unlikely the Starship steamroller can get going that fast.

Maybe if they put S26 on its side? It doesn't have flaps so it can roll much better

Refurbishment time (along with a requirement that 90% or whatever of the object is re-used) is probably a descent proxy for economically practical re-use. Much of the shuttle refurbishment cost was paying an army of people, and if a rocket is being re-flown in a few weeks there’s only so much you’d be able to spend.

Hmm, I guess anything that makes it to 30 times reuse has to be faster than every half a year anyway, otherwise it takes 15 years to even get there. Maybe the conditions are fine as is, based on that. If not, I guess I'll do a best-effort judgement call, is that cool?

Yea I think the conditions are fine for the reason you mention. SS Discovery launched 39 times…over 28 years.

Also, the Starship Booster isn’t a radically different design to Falcon 9. I strongly expect if it launches more frequently it will be because it’s economical, not because they are doing very expensive refurb.