/sci/ - Science & Math

>>15347122
Stoke is most promising by a country mile. They have an extremely sane architecture and are hardware rich. If their actively cooled heatshield seems like a really good solution to one of the biggest barriers to full reusability.

Rocket Lab takes second place. They've been indulging in a worrying amount of vacuous investor hype in recent years and have been burning a lot of cash, but their history of actually launching payloads gives them a lot of credibility regardless. Neutron is a bit lackluster, but perfectly fine for a market where they are not necessarily competing against SpaceX itself, but are rather competing to become the SpaceX alternative.

Firefly is the dark horse of meme launchers. They aren't discussed much, but deserve more credit considering that they are actually making launches. The fact that they made somewhat immature technologies like combustion tapoff and carbon fiber tanks work is also something that I would consider a good sign. Their biggest failing is their lack of serious consideration of reuse (other than Gamma), but they may have the ability to pivot to it when it becomes necessary in the near future.

New Terran R is actually a pretty decent Falcon 9 clone now, but I have absolutely zero faith in the company. Any company that was able to persist in the delusion that printed tanks were a good idea for that long is too retarded to survive. They also spent years and tons of capital on Terran 1 and then abandoned it. I suspect they will go the way of Astra within two years.

I'm stopping here because this is getting too long.