Elon Musk just described the most expensive mistake in engineering history. It lasted 70 years. Musk: “If we had to throw away airplanes every time we flew, flying would be far too expensive and basically no one would be flying airplanes.” That wasn’t a thought experiment. That was the... actual business model of spaceflight since 1957. Build a rocket worth billions. Fly it once. Let the ocean swallow it. Then start over from nothing. Ships are reusable. Trains are reusable. Cars are reusable. Planes are reusable. If it can’t fly twice, it’s not transportation. It’s a stunt. For seven decades, spaceflight was a stunt. Musk: “Earth has a deep gravity well and a thick atmosphere, and these make it just barely possible to achieve reusability with a rocket.” Barely possible means it was always possible. The gravity was always light enough. The atmosphere was always thin enough. The margin was always there. “Barely possible” was rounded down to impossible. The entire industry believed the rounding, not the math. Musk: “It’s the first rocket design that is capable of full and rapid reusability. You simply cannot send this to the moon, to Mars, and to the rest of the solar system without a reusable rocket.” Every single-use rocket was a vote to stay grounded. For 70 years, the vote was unanimous. Starship didn’t break a law of physics. It proved “impossible” was a policy, not a constraint.show more

Dustin

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