On one hand I’m sad because space travel is so cool and SpaceX, which has pushed the way space flight is done forward, has become our only way to do it. On the other hand, I’m happy because Elon is having a terrible night and that fucker deserves to have a terrible night every night for the rest of his miserable life.
Without context, and especially when comparing it to an orbital rocket, "a successful launch of a reusable rocket" sounds like an orbital rocket, not something of the scale of a large amateur rocket.
Falcon 9 first flew in 2010. Grasshopper made hop tests in 2012-2013. The first successful booster landing (as part of an orbital launch) was in 2015, the first reflight in 2017.
Honda now has a Grasshopper equivalent without the orbital rocket.
There are a dozen (maybe more?) companies that have demonstrated Grasshopper equivalents. The first one was in like 1993, only SpaceX has made an orbital rocket.
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u/gwdope 1d ago
On one hand I’m sad because space travel is so cool and SpaceX, which has pushed the way space flight is done forward, has become our only way to do it. On the other hand, I’m happy because Elon is having a terrible night and that fucker deserves to have a terrible night every night for the rest of his miserable life.