(eli5) whats the difference between modern and 70’s spaceships ?

Question

(eli5) whats the difference between modern and 70’s spaceships ?

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Answer 1

The spaceships of the 60s and 70s were handmade custom machines. Each one required enormous amounts of work to assemble and integrate for a single use.

Modern spaceships are made in factories and typically reusable. That makes them much less expensive to use in the long run. Technology changes over the last 50 years have been very dramatic in every area from machining to software.