Originally Posted by
TURIN
The idea is to land the booster right on the launch pad, ready for a quick (1 hr according to Musk) turnround.
Similarly, the Starship itself needs to land close to the booster to allow a similar refuel and RTS. .
That all makes sense (and, if the booster's launching over water its return path will be over water).
What I'm getting at is that there appears to be no orbit for which both launch and re-entry trajectories are over water. Launching over water from Texas and then returning from orbit to the same location seems to commit you to a re-entry path over land; that might not be an issue for a proven vehicle, but seems a bit of a risk for the first few orbital flights of a vehicle very different to any that's flown before. Look at what happened to Columbia; that didn't hurt anyone in the ground, but it could have done.