| > and reliable vertical landings We know how to do reliable vertical landing since the DCXA in 1991. Meaning more than 25y ago [1] > reliability during missions (test explosions like this one are tests for a reason) Static fire tests are routine since the 60s, nothing new here either [2]. > We have 15x reduction in payload-to-orbit costs This is about manufacturing optimization and it has very little to do with rocket safety. > hey are well on their way to making orbital space flight a commodity They are not. It is at best marketing speech.
The access to space is at best cheaper but will never be commodity. The parent post is right on point: Rockets todays are still fundamentally the same giant bomb filled at 85% with explosive that we were making in the 60s. And this is unlikely to change and unlikely to ever be safe. There is very valid reasons to that: we still did not find anything better than chemical propulsion to go in the last 80 years. It is the only 'working' solution in term of the energy density required to bring us there: - Ion thrusters have amazing Isp but nowhere the Thrust/Weight ratio required to launch from Earth. - Nuclear propulsion is good on paper but controversial in practice for pretty obvious reasons. So we are still stuck.
Stuck with burning 1'000t of highly inflammable Ergols in few minutes to just push any blob in orbit. With very thin engineering margins, way thiner than in airplane manufacturing or currently pretty any other domain. And that make it unlikely to ever be really "safe" and accessible to the mass. At least, not before we find a better solution to the problem. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBar3FyI_cA [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rP6k18DVdg |
> We know how to do reliable vertical landing since the DCXA in 1991. Meaning more than 25y ago
One could argue the applicability of "reliable" given the project's track record, but it's not really relevant in any case since that program only got up a few kilometers and nowhere near orbital velocity.