>>12707310>>12707314SpaceX would never had needed to exist is NASA didn't cancel apollo, kept their momentum by building the moon/mars/earth ferry network, and actually pursued more radical concepts like DC-X or Venturstar in the 80s/90s
The shuttle was a time sink, waste of money, death trap that blocked development of larger programs
They even fucked up the original shuttle design, which was basically just a starship lmao
Paying 1-2 billion dollars a launch when cheaper infrastructure already existed isn't an achievement, it's a failure
They never needed the shuttle at all, they could have used something else
