> The original plan for recovering the F9 first stage was to use parachutes and this was tried with the first couple of launches That wrong. They tried this on

> The original plan for recovering the F9 first stage was to use parachutes and this was tried with the first couple of launches That wrong. They tried this on the Falcon 9, not the Falcon 9. Re-usability was their goal early on and and it was just a question of how to get there. Its not an accident. You could of course claim the exact architecture they have is an accident. But then again had they developed this larger engine they might have moved to a larger vehicle with 5 of those before going to a fully reusable Starship style vehicle. The important point is consistently worked towards a known goal.