Yet this claim isn't "niche".. It's front-and-center -- it's fairly widely known that 2024 Artemis math/plans was going to require 15 "re-fuelings" for double-the-load. This discrepancy is quite glaring.
So I'd think we no longer need "one of the rocket guys to answer this" - because they should already answered this, and you can just tell me "what they said".
Surely I'm not the first to notice this, right?
We don't even need one of the "rocket guys", just some simple common sense.
What did Apollo send to the moon? The CM, SM, LM, 3rd Stage, and the adaptor. All up, less than 163,313kg (since the 3rd stage wasn't full when TLI occurred).
What's Starship's weight? 100,000kg.... empty. Fully fueled, Starship is apparently 1,300,000kg.
And then there's the mission profile. Starship HLS has to get itself to Earth orbit, that uses it's fuel. Then it will need to get itself to the moon, hence the need to refuel. That fuel will also be needed to establish lunar orbit, descent to the lunar surface, and return from the surface to lunar orbit.
Apollo used the 1st, 2nd, and part of the 3rd stage to get to Earth orbit, reducing in mass with each subsequent staging. The 3rd stage sent them to the moon. The CSM, now with a lot less mass to worry about, put them in lunar orbit and sent them back to Earth, while the LM, with even more less mass to worry about, got them to the surface, and the LM ascent stage, with even less mass again, got back to lunar orbit.