> Do company executives really make these sort of claims with a straight face? More importantly, does anybody in the "public" really believe them?
Why do you think this is far-fetched?
I agree, totally not far fetched
Elon hasn't got a single clue what a critical path is in a project plan.
SpaceX has safely flown 78 crewmembers from 20 countries across 20 human spaceflight missions using its Crew Dragon spacecraft since May 2020.
Those smart minds have mostly left spacex now, since musk changed political sides and became much less 'cool' for the brightest to work at.
That's why the company is struggling now - few smart minds means little progress.
Care to name a few?
Makes sense - they had been there ~20 years and must have a huge pile of stock.
But due to musks political aura (mostly right leaning), the smart minds from universities(which are mostly left leaning) are no longer joining spacex en-mass.
In turn, that means the companies are merely ticking along, not racing ahead.
What data do you have to convince someone who is skeptical and suspicious of your claim?
They make and launch them. More, in fact than the rest of the world combined.
At this point, anyone claiming "SpaceX can't do <generic space related thing>" is either 1) claiming that no one can or 2) blinded by some sort of ideological bias.
>SpaceX Achieves Its First Moon Landing by Accidentally Crashing Into It at 5,400 Miles Per Hour, Causing Huge Explosion and 60-Foot Crater https://futurism.com/space/spacex-crashes-into-moon
They also have a $2.9bn contract with NASA to land astronauts.
With Starship. Is that a trick question?
TBF a starship will orbit the planet at least once, just with a fraction of the spec payload and therefore no chance of being refueled to get out of orbit to the Moon. Starship's project dependencies each have a clusterfuck of dependencies, and they each...
It all has to go right or it fails. On top of all that his business strategies is brittle in the same way Tesla is crippled by not having a cheaper car instead of fantasy project like humanoid robots and cyber cab.