In article ,
says...
I think there is still quite some difference between landing a passenger
aircraft, loading new passengers and fuel and taking off again for the
next flight, and re-using a Falcon launcher.


Yes, for Block 4 Falcon 9 first stages I would agree. But, the intent
of the Block 5 first stage improvements is to land them, inspect them,
and refly them up to 10 times before having to do any "tear downs" or
major refurbishment. That's pretty close to "gas and go". Musk has
even publicly stated he'd like to see a rapid first stage reflight (as
in a day) of a Falcon 9 first stage. He is setting the bar so high that
there will soon be much less difference between a liquid fueled first
stage reuse and reflying a passenger aircraft.

I think that no one can dispute the fact that SpaceX is making rapid
progress on first stage reuse. This progress is far more rapid than the
global competition who is either not trying to reuse anything, or have
so far only flown suborbital reuse flights (i.e. Blue Origin).

We're at the cusp of a launch vehicle revolution, yet it appears that
the nay-sayers still aren't convinced.

Jeff
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