On October 13th, history was made.

SpaceX’s Starship booster, a multimillion-dollar rocket engine, launched into space and returned in one piece to Earth.

The grandeur of successfully being able to reuse rockets speaks for itself, and the doors to insane cost savings have been flung open.

Similar to how the Erie Canal dramatically reduced transportation costs by 95% when it was built, we’re going to see similar unbelievable cost reductions with the ability to reuse rocket engines.

Only in this case, it’s never been this way before.

(It’s worth noting some Flacon 9 boosters have flown as many as 20 times with the same booster but they typically land on a drone ship or designated landing pad and the Starship booster is too large to do that reliably. The arm approach is also important because uneven landing zone, which will be a common on the Moon & Mars, become nonissues.)

(Which made me wonder, who built the first ship-ferrying canal?)

What’s also insane is some of the hoops the company has had to jump through to achieve approval to launch.

In a fairly heated write up “STARSHIPS ARE MEANT TO FLY”, they let loose with their frustration.

NASA selected SpaceX’s Starship for its Artemis 3 mission, targeted for September 2026, which plans to land humans on the Moon.

Time is ticking.