Congratulations to RocketX! A legitimate RTB for their rocket, the Falcon 9… the real Millennium Falcon, at least for this second millennium!
A rare overtness of Billionaire rivalry came in the form of an even rarer tweet from Jeff Bezos. Maybe Mr. Bezos could have been a bit more gracious, because while his Blue Origin rocket DID shoot up to an altitude of 329,839 feet and smoothly returned to its landing pad last month, Mr. Musk’s Falcon 9 did something much more bold: The Falcon 9 legitimately went high enough to hit LEO, came back down at double the speed (mach 6 for the Falcon, mach 3 for the Shepard), and landed at the historic Cape Canaveral. Furthermore, the Falcon 9 is huge compared to the Shepard…have a look at them side by side. SpaceX has made bold and risky attempts to push the envelope, and push it they have. It is great to see the California company’s efforts finally pay off.
Of course, perhaps they are golf or poker buddies and this is simply a little camaraderie jibe 🙂
Either way, they have both succeeded, with budgets NASA would deem to be a Rounding Error! Given the endemic cost overruns associated with NASA and government programs in general Perhaps it is time to seriously revamp NASA as an initiative agency for aero/space tech?