That feels like a conspiracy theory. It feels like it could be right, but I’ve never seen or heard anything to back it up.
It seems implausible for that to have been the “real goal all along”. SpaceX have had Mars ambitions since the early 2000s, before internet-connected smartphones existed. As far as I know, Starlink was the result of SpaceX clearing their Falcon 9 customer backlog around 2017, and asking themselves “What else could we launch?”.
It seems implausible for that to have been the “real goal all along”. SpaceX have had Mars ambitions since the early 2000s, before internet-connected smartphones existed. As far as I know, Starlink was the result of SpaceX clearing their Falcon 9 customer backlog around 2017, and asking themselves “What else could we launch?”.