Not Tired of Winning Yet CXVIII

Ad astra! While, technically, Donald Trump did not himself push the rocket into space with the breath of his nostrils, deregulation and redirecting the efforts of NASA toward private enterprise was indeed a promise made and kept.

Please note that the first stage returns to earth and, like a proper spaceship, lands on her tailfins, as God and Robert Heinlein intended.

from a reader with the alphanumeric name of dgg3565. The words below are his:

First commercial spaceflight ever! First humans launched on a reusable rocket! Also, SpaceX recently acquired a license from the FAA to conduct unlimited suborbital test launches of Starship for the next two years. SN4 blew up (it appears from a damaged connection on a fuel hose), but prototype SN5 is nearly finished, SN6 is well on its way, and they’re starting work on SN7. It seems they have a path to get launch prices with Starship down to $1.5 million per launch for 150+ tons to orbit, or for an averages-sized man, about the price of a business class plane ticket to LEO and the price of a transatlantic plane ticket to the Moon (by weight). And they’re looking to manufacture a fleet of one thousand Starships.

Blue Origin looks to be on track for launching their reusable New Shepard rocket next year from KSC and Rocket Lab, which has a launch pad in VA, is also getting into the reusable rocket game. SpaceX also has a freshly inked contract to send three tourists up the ISS next year and Tom Cruise is working with SpaceX and NASA to film a movie on the ISS. Axiom Space is also contracted to add a commercial module to the ISS, which can serve a cornerstone for a future commercial space station, once the ISS is finally decommissioned.