The industrial revolution of space has arrived (and it’s messy)

If the last decade of aerospace was about “proof of concept”, 2025 has been the year of industrial scaling.

We are witnessing a shift that historians will likely compare to the transition from steam engines to internal combustion. We are moving from the era of “launches” to the era of “flights”—and the distinction is not merely semantic. It is economic, logistical, and civilisational.

In this week’s Deep Dive, I move past the headlines to look at the machinery of this revolution.Subscribe

The State of Play: December 2025

SpaceX is no longer just leading the market; it is the market. With over 160 launches this year and the massive success of Starship Flight 11—where we finally saw the second stage splash down softly in the Indian Ocean—the “Holy Grail” of full reusability is effectively solved.

But the monopoly is showing hairline fractures.

• Blue Origin has finally joined the club. Their successful recovery of the New Glenn booster in November proves that orbital-class reusability is not just a “Musk anomaly”—it is a replicable engineering standard.
• China is hitting the “tuition fees” phase of innovation. Recent landing failures from LandSpace and the Long March 12A this month show just how difficult the “hoverslam” manoeuvre really is, even for a state superpower.

In the full article below, I break down:

🚀 The Physics of the “Suicide Burn”: Why landing a rocket is like balancing a pencil on a unicycle during an earthquake (and why Methalox fuel is changing the equation).

🌏 The Geography Problem: Why China’s inland launch sites are a massive disadvantage compared to Florida’s coast.

🌕 The Cislunar Economy: Why the “Launch Service Provider” is dying, and the “Space Logistics Operator” is taking over. I discuss the rise of Nuclear Thermal Propulsion testing on the Moon and why Space Data Centres might be the first real customers for space-based solar power.