When Starship will fly with people?
SpaceX works on a lunar landing version of Starship, HLS, which is supposed to carry people from the Moon orbit to the surface of the Moon and back. Current plans are for HLS to fly with people no earlier than mid-2027. But mid-2027 is less than two years away. And given that HLS is a variant of Starship, we might assume that some expertise building HLS could be used to build a crewed Starship not only for Moon landings.
So, somewhere in 3 years, in 2028 - maybe, even with some delays - Starship will have flown some people, up to 4, according to plans agreed upon with NASA. Those flights however will be for Moon conditions - Moon gravity, no atmosphere. How long will it take to fly Starship with people from the Earth to LEO - and back?
SpaceX plans to have a lot of flights of Starships, so in the next 3 years they'll likely get a lot of experience landing Starship to Earth. They, after all, will have to fly a lot of tankers fueling Moon-bound Starships. Landing involves both passing the atmosphere and getting caught on the landing tower. So in 3 years they might be ready to fly people - we'll see that if enough Starship flights will show the reliability of the operations. Launching Starship seems a bit easier, but if something happens during launch, the problems of landing are going to be the immediate concern. Maybe Starships - especially early Starships flying people to LEO - will have some special crew safety systems. The question is, when can we estimate those flight start happening?
To be continued...