Spaceplanes vs reusable rockets – which will win?

Launching satellites, spacecraft and people into space is expensive because we only use our launch vehicles once. After delivering their payloads into orbit, our rockets either burn up in the atmosphere or crash into the ocean. Imagine how expensive a transatlantic flight would be if aircraft made only a single flight before being scrapped – this is the situation with the commercial space industry. Rocket fuel accounts for only 1,000th of the total launch cost, with the rest largely accounted for by the one-shot, disposable launch vehicle.

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