THE FUSE

A few statistics came across my screen this week that made me blink and re-read. SpaceX launched 165 rockets in 2025. That is nearly one every two days. And if you think that’s astonishing, consider this. Musk’s new rocket, Starship, will cost customers somewhere around $100–$150 (R1,600–R2,500) per kilogram to launch payloads into Earth’s orbit. That is 10 times cheaper than SpaceX’s current much re-used rocket Falcon. And about 50 times cheaper than the French-made Arianne. And 200 times cheaper than Nasa’s SLS.