rockets have pretty much always been single-use since their invention, which has been the primary reason for space travel being so ludicrously expensive. imagine how much a plane ticket would cost if an airliner could only fit 3 passengers and was destroyed after one flight. nasa dabbled with reusable spacecraft with the space shuttle, but the refurbishment of the shuttle was so expensive it would have been cheaper if they’d kept flying single-use rockets.

when spacex landed a falcon 9 first stage in december 2015, we may have finally entered an age of true reusable spacecraft, where rockets can simply be refuelled and flown again much like an airliner. of course, we’re not quite there yet, but in a few decades space travel may finally be accessible not just to astronauts and ultra-gazillionaires, but to regular folk like you and me.

…well, not really me. you’ll still probably need many thousands of bucks for a ticket, and i forfeited making that kind of money when i started drawing comics. :(