I mean this is why the Space Shuttle was such a poor design, building a launch vehicle that could lift 200,000 lbs, but use that lift for a 150,000 lb space plane before an ounce of cargo or people were added.

Weight is only about fuel and reusability. I think you’re still not thinking about this right. Assuming Musk is right and you can reuse autonomous rockets over and over, then the only thing that matters is fuel.

STS wasn’t 100% reusable, it was partially refurbishable.

You can’t aerocapture a hab at mars, you can’t aerobrake a hab back at earth. This is free braking the spaceship can use.

The rotating hab rotates, which adds complexity.

Nope, still not thinking in terms of cost. Fuel is cheap, mass to orbit is cheap, so long as the system is 100% reusable.

You can bet that theyre going to go with whatever the engineers think is safest and most efficient. The problem with he pie in the sky rotating hab is that its a rotating hab with a bunch of points of failiure, while the design that they showed is a simple big capsule. I know which one I would feel a heck of a lot…

You’re still thinking like old space. Go watch the presentation again, especially the parts about reusability. The cost of building something is high, the cost of reuse is low, the cost of fuel is low. Build a few things, reuse them a lot, optimize for cost not smallest amount of fuel or lowest number of launches.