> There's a huge cost to be compliant with the regulations in ... aviation space, so you don't see many successful startups and not much progress as a result. W

> There's a huge cost to be compliant with the regulations in ... aviation space, so you don't see many successful startups and not much progress as a result. We are still flying WWII rockets... SpaceX would like to have a word with you. IIRC, they've designed and built -from the ground up- their own rockets that get payloads to orbit at 1/3 the cost of anyone else. The other players are still flying rockets either largely designed in or actually from the 1960's [0] because not many of the folks who need things in space understand how to build rockets. This means that -much like the telecommunications "market" in the US- incumbent players can put next-to-nothing into R&D and new tech and just sit around and watch the fat paychecks come in. It's an industry that's in dire need of a shakeup. [0] WWII was from 1939 to 1945. ICBMs [1] are substantially more sophisticated than any rocket from WWII. [1] Which are effectively what was transporting the astronauts in the Apollo program.