I'd think that anyone publishing an article with that large an audience would have other people checking each fact. How hard is it to search on SpaceX's own website to verify these things? Five minutes would probably show the error.
Here is what the mainstream media reported:
After being lofted into space by a Falcon Super Heavy, his next rocket, the Starship will light out for the moon, land there, take off and return to Earth, with no stages expended on the lunar journey. This so-called single-stage-to-orbit model has been the white whale of rocket designers for generations.
"Expended" means lost. And that is factual. There are no stages "lost." And... It takes one stage to get Starship into orbit. Hence, SSTO. ...But these are just the ramblings of a drunk man. Carry on.
Two stages. Falcon Superheavy ("Big Fucking Rocket") is Stage 1. Starship is Stage 2.
But they have yet to make an orbital flight. That's scheduled for sometime next month.
Seems like a minor nerdy pedantic point to quibble over - laymen aren't really going to give a shit and the people old enough to remember the multistage Saturn V Apollo Mission rockets are not going to get their panties in a bunch of a "2-stage-to-orbit-but-no-rockets-lost" rockets.
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