SpaceX's May 7 full thrust 33 engine static fire of Super Heavy V3 at Starbase is the right Starship signal to watch. The signal lives below the Mars render and payload fantasy, in the ground system being forced to admit whether the rocket is becoming routine hardware.

The useful detail is ugly and precise. Earlier V3 booster fires were curtailed by ground equipment. This one held the full stack of violence in place for fourteen seconds, with Flight 12 now pointed at the first Version 3 attempt. Reusable launch escapes mythology through pad plumbing, methane flow, thermal margins, hold down logic, and the repeated humiliation of every component that pretends it can hide from measurement.

The space economy keeps asking for lower launch prices while treating rockets as ceremony. Starship turns the ceremony into a factory problem.