Pretend I know absolutely nothing about these space things beyond whatever I read on Manifold (it's true):

Is there any provision to land one of these things as a "landing" instead of a "catch"? If so, is there a market about whether they will "land" one before they "catch" one?

@Eliza My understanding is that they weren't given landing legs, to save on weight. So it's chopsticks or bust.

@MichaelWheatley Thanks for the insight! That sounds absolutely terrifying for whoever wants to go for a ride inside one.

@Eliza should point out that these Starships are very far from being human-rated. It would indeed be reasonable to suspect that a crewed version will have back-up legs and even a (desperate) water landing option

@JoshuaWilkes An ejectable crew compartment, maybe, but landing legs would be a big ask.

Just to clarify, you're talking specifically about the starship/2nd stage here?

@MattP as the description says, yes

Writing this shortly after the IFT-5 flight in 2024:

I think YES. I think SpaceX will sequentially achieve goals towards a Mars shot in this order:

1. Booster reuse (most risk retired with the catch)

2. Ship reuse (preceded by catch, this market)

3. Ship refueling

4. Lunar orbit insertion (for Artemis, but also a test run for navigation and guidance, beyond earth orbit comms, etc)

5. Lunar landing (maybe on same mission as 4)

6. Mars landing.

Trying to land the ship is risky, but it's next on the list. They need to move fast to get through the whole list, so I don't think they're going to hesitate to try it.

I expect flight 6 or 7 will make a landing attempt, in first half of 2025. That gives them the second half to try again if the first attempt fails.

8 out 10 chance seems about right, at this time.

[Edit: fix spelling]