SpaceX Does the Preposterous

SpaceX has done what everyone assumed was preposterous.

In the 1950s and earlier, science fiction assumed that rockets would land on their tails at a spaceport, get refueled (if necessary), and launch again. That imagery was seen in movies like Destination Moon, Twilight Zone episodes, and countless pulp magazine covers (’cause I’m too lazy to count them).

Then came the space race with expendable rockets falling into the ocean and sinking to the bottom, never to be seen again, and the idea of a reusable rocket landing on its tail and lifting off again was deemed to be preposterous. No serious science fiction would show such a thing.

The space shuttle came along and embedded in our minds a new approach to reusable spacecraft. And we started seeing science fiction movies with ships gliding down horizontally to spaceports and (unlike the shuttle) taking off horizontally, using some sort of magical levitation technology.

Now comes Elon Musk (who, BTW, seems to have been working way too many hours and going a little bit off his rocker). With the Block 5 Falcon 9, he’s aiming to relaunch after just refueling and doing a routine maintenance check. He’s not there yet: he needs to of course proceed cautiously with the first few reflights. And even when SpaceX has mastered quick turnaround on a first stage, they’re still moving the rocket from the landing site to the launch site and fitting a new second stage and capsule or payload on it.

But what SpaceX is doing is still startlingly close to what old SF artists imagined. And I find it remarkable that the strategy we once took seriously, then dismissed as silly, is now looking like the future.