Yes. The shuttle was both rocket and spacecraft, obviously controllable for landing. The Shuttle SRBs were reusable. They were not controllable for landing, but nonetheless they did land in a state that allowed reuse.
Musk achieved powered flight for landing his rockets, but even NASA had a long history of research with VTOL powered rockets that were not used for spaceflight.
He can certainly claim to have perfected it, but he certainly didn’t invent it.
He can certainly claim to have perfected it, but he certainly didn’t invent it.
He did jack all, SpaceX engineering teams did everything.
Well, yes. That is true.
they have managed to set a trend for filling the night sky with shitty little low orbit satellites chewing up the ozone layer
and of course oversaturating LEO, because while they will come down eventually, those dead satellites will stay up there for a decade or more in some cases
In this case, should we measure maturity in the amount of money burned?
where are we at?