第一个挑战是星舰（Starship）的庞大体积与研发成本。SpaceX 已经投入了 150 亿美元开发这款完全可重复使用的巨型火箭，而且太空部门的资本支出仍在大幅飙升。与早期成本较低的发射事故不同，如今星舰测试失败所耗费的时间和金钱代价都极其沉重。
第二个挑战是来自股东和合作伙伴的巨大压力。SpaceX 如今拥有需要讨好的股东，且美国宇航局（NASA）与投资者都仰赖星舰的成功来实现月球基地及扩展卫星资料网路等关键计划，因此他们急需一次没有意外爆炸的成功测试来稳固投资人的信心。
SpaceX's unique engineering culture of rapidly testing, learning from failures, and iterating successfully developed the Falcon 9 rocket, propelling it from a cash-strapped startup to one of the world's most valuable companies. However, this strategy of moving fast and breaking things is currently facing two major obstacles that may force the company to reconsider its development model.
The first challenge is the massive size and development cost of Starship. SpaceX has already invested $15 billion in developing this fully reusable giant rocket, and capital expenditures for its space unit continue to surge significantly. Unlike the relatively inexpensive early launch mishaps, the burden of time and money associated with Starship test failures is now incredibly heavy. (Key numbers: 150)
The second challenge is the immense pressure from shareholders and partners. SpaceX now has shareholders to please, and both NASA and investors are heavily relying on Starship's success to enable key plans like a permanent moon base and the expansion of satellite data networks, making a successful test without unscheduled explosions urgently needed to secure investor confidence.