Civilization's toughest technical challenges are those that require extraordinary (and constantly improving) performance to be delivered at a low cost.
Nobody thought it was impossible, everyone with half a brain understands the math of launching rockets and figured out recoverable VTOLs don’t save that much money compared to traditional launches. Space X has pentagon contracts that allow them to practice dumping in the launch market. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not being honest to themselves.
“They’re doing what was previously thought to be impossible”
DCXA (am I a joke to you)
Elmo fanboy detected.
Nobody thought it was impossible, everyone with half a brain understands the math of launching rockets and figured out recoverable VTOLs don’t save that much money compared to traditional launches. Space X has pentagon contracts that allow them to practice dumping in the launch market. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not being honest to themselves.
edit:sauce