. Not even three of the most high-profile new space companies were immune to safety concerns.
Typical rockets, which can take anywhere from a year to five to construct, undergo hundreds of tests before getting the green light to lift off. But unlike a faulty car that can be recalled or a plane that can be grounded, a rocket doesn’t have the luxury of turning back the clock. How much cargo a spacecraft can hold usually depends on what the mission needs a spacecraft to achieve. “Everything that you add to the rocket is heavy, and so if you have to carry it along, that makes the rocket thicker,” Schiller said. And that includes fuel. NASA’s Saturn V rocket, used to launch the Apollo missions, was one of the largest and most expensive rockets to date. It was able to carry 107,000 lbs of material to the moon.