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.
Heh, yeah they should have kept trying to get the Delta clipper to work. But they notably ended development of the program…
Nobody thought it was impossible
Everyone thought it was infeasible, especially after the Delta clipper proved unproductive. After that, nobody even tried because it would just be an endless money pit there certainly wants any active development in that area I know of when SpaceX started.
Elmo fanboy detected.
I explicitly said the opposite. I’ll admit to being extremely impressed with what SpaceX has accomplished, but don’t confuse that with musk worship, the man needs to just stop doing… anything.
“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
Heh, yeah they should have kept trying to get the Delta clipper to work. But they notably ended development of the program…
Everyone thought it was infeasible, especially after the Delta clipper proved unproductive. After that, nobody even tried because it would just be an endless money pit there certainly wants any active development in that area I know of when SpaceX started.
I explicitly said the opposite. I’ll admit to being extremely impressed with what SpaceX has accomplished, but don’t confuse that with musk worship, the man needs to just stop doing… anything.