SpaceflightMemes

A lot of that is water vapor coming off the outside of the chilled tanks, though?

No, there's a lot of ice that falls off. Ice doesn't come off in plumes from vents.

The thing about spacex's falcon 9 architecture is, it's an economy of scale. They need to launch a lot to be profitable. As soon as the started launching regularly they quickly ran out of commercial clients. The industry wasn't ready for regular trips to space. All the waiting satellites got quickly launched and the backlog essentially evaporated. Spacex spent the time waiting for the new satellites to be built launching starlink. This allowed them to push the limits of reusability with their own private launches to show their commercial clients how safe used rockets are. This was always the plan, building consumer confidence by cornering the low orbit satellite market.

Way back during one of the early starship presentations Elon presented an idea for funding starship that was selling underpants (haha, 2016 Elon! You crazy!) There was a plan.