SpaceX is NASA’s biggest lunar rival

I t was something amazing—an expensive, delicate ship falling out of the sky with such precision that it could be caught in a waiting pair of giant, gentle arms. If you wanted an illustration of the fact that Americans can do things in space beyond the reach of other earthlings the return of the booster stage of SpaceX’s fifth Starship test flight on October 13th could hardly be bettered.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Team of rivals”

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The conditions are hot, sulphurous and low in oxygen

If SpaceX can land and reuse the most powerful rocket ever made what can’t it do?

A spacecraft heading to Europa is designed to find out

Solutions include bendy propellers and “acoustic black holes”

Medaka catch rides on obliging birds, confirming one of Darwin’s hunches

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They both want to crush Tesla’s competition

Elon Musk’s space venture may soon be more valuable than Tesla

Will politics bring it back to Earth?

The successful test-flight of SpaceX’s massive new space vehicle promises a host of new projects, including the colonisation of Mars

If SpaceX can land and reuse the most powerful rocket ever made what can’t it do?

Scaling up self-driving taxis will be hard, and competition will be fierce

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/10/17/spacex-is-nasas-biggest-lunar-rival

A source: www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/10/17/spacex-is-nasas-biggest-lunar-rival