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Comment by fedpost | original | SpaceX catches the Starship to end Flight 15
[−]fedpost · 2026-11-14 Sat 22:19 UTC · link
That's...the point. You can hire commercial welders to work on the ground side and build everything out once, cheaply.

The issue with the shuttle era was that they needed huge teams of specialized technicians to refurbish the insanely complex orbiter after every mission.

If we ever get sufficiently improved materials science for heat shields and engines there's still always a possibility of returning to the SSTO space plane concept. That would allow a more austere launch and recovery environment, but given current limitations this is the local maxima.

[−]sfblah · 2026-11-15 Sun 00:56 UTC · link
The actual problem with the shuttle was the same as the same as the actual problem with all space technologies -- there just isn't that much value in launching stuff into space. It's nonzero, but it's a rounding error when compared to terrestrial applications.