Comment by saberience
17 hours ago
Recovering parts that landed in the literal salty ocean and need massive refurbishment to work again isn't really reusable in the same way that Falcon is though really is it? Trying to compare the two is honestly disingenuous.
Calling Space Shuttle to what SpaceX have done really is like comparing chalk and cheese.
Space shuttle cost (inflation adjusted) about 700M per launch(!!). Compared to Falcon 9 (10-20M). Superheavy and starship will start costing maybe 100M and rapidly decrease to maybe 10-20M also, but with more than double the carrying capacity of shuttle as well as in generally being far more capable.
Falcons upper stage isn't recovered or refurbished at all. And sometimes it launches the whole thing in expendible configuration more like SLS's use of shuttle engines than shuttle's.
30-40 years after shuttle yes we have improvements, but that doesn't make it first to reuse the rocket.