SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel
Precisely when, though, remains unclear
WHEN IT COMES to size and spectacle, the peak of the Space Age passed in 1973, with the final flight of the Saturn V rocket that had carried the Apollo astronauts to the moon. Taller than the Statue of Liberty, the Saturn V could lug 140 tonnes into orbit. Its first flight, in 1967, provoked Walter Cronkite, an American news anchor reporting far from the pad, to exclaim: “My God, our building’s shaking here!” as ceiling tiles fell around him. Half a century later, nothing as powerful has reached orbit since (see chart 1).
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Ad astra, on the cheap”
From the February 19th 2022 edition
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