SpaceX is NASA’s biggest lunar rival
The company’s successes are also showing up the agency’s failings
It was something amazing—an expensive, delicate ship falling out of the sky with such precision that it could be caught in a waiting pair of giant, gentle arms. If you wanted an illustration of the fact that Americans can do things in space beyond the reach of other earthlings the return of the booster stage of SpaceX’s fifth Starship test flight on October 13th could hardly be bettered.
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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Team of rivals”
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