Starship development and progress [previous title: Will Musk's starship reach orbit this year?]

Fingers crossed. It’s been a while coming! One has to wonder though: if they get the second stage up there OK, why not do at least one or two LEO orbits as a sort of ‘victory lap’?

Of course we don’t know the details of the planning, and it would complicate things with a re-entry burn, I suppose. I guess any launch is better than no launch…