The good thing about the first stage is that you can go 'ass' first and fly the rocket threw a corridor of relativity ok environment. The problem with second s

The good thing about the first stage is that you can go 'ass' first and fly the rocket threw a corridor of relativity ok environment. The problem with second stage re-usability is that it is like 25x harder then first stage. > Rocket Lab only promised the Neutron will do 8,000kg to low-Earth orbit, and people are suggesting the rocket tanks can be stretched for added performance. Like the Falcon did too. > If SpaceX wasn't pursuing Starship they would continue to spend resources on second stage reusability for the Falcon 9. Even less than 2 years ago Elon Musk was still talking about using a ballute to recover the Falcon 9 second stage [1], but they later decided to put all their resources into the Starship. Yeah but a big part of that choice was that they realized they would reduce their payload so much it not really worth it in the majority of cases. > But that's all the more reason for Rocket Lab to pursue second stage reusability. Agree overall. Personally I am kind of a fan of the idea to try to reuse them in Orbit. I think there are a couple interesting things that could potentially be done.