Well, there were a lot of fundamental steps that had to be completed first, not least of which was a high pressure vessel. This all took a lot of materials science, advancement in seemingly unrelated fields, etc., etc. Not unlike fusion technology… The difference is we have 2000 years more advancement than they had when they invented the steam engine.

It was about 1800 years between the first steam engine and a practical steam engine. I’m sorry that one or two generations is too long for you.

It’s a sandbox survival game. So, the first step is to survive to the point where you can start making choices, the next step is to figure out what you want your goals to be. Then, the hard part. How will you achieve those goals?

Even solids are mostly nothing. This is why neutron stars are so dense - there is a lot less nothing between the neutrons, largely due to gravity.

Here’s another way to think about it. A gas is like a bunch of balls bouncing around a room, hitting the walls and occasionally each other. A solid is like a ball pit, but the balls are vibrating. There is still a lot of bouncing, but most of themstay together.

There have been some recent advances on hydrogen production. I don’t think this (sorry for the MSN link) is the one I heard of, but is an interesting example where cheaper catalysts are improving the efficiency of hydrogen production.

Now, I don’t know if or when hydrogen will be more cost-effective than batteries, which are also experiencing massive advances. This is why I’m going to take the comment someone on Lemmy made about buying used EVs for the next little while - it’s cheaper, they’re lasting longer than predicted, and the advances lined up for the next few years are significant.

There are two American rocket projects in the works that can carry a significant payload to the moon. One is using existing parts in a new configuration. It had one successful launch and cost $4B ($2.5B in launch costs alone). One is building a largely new system and improving existing elements and is estimated to have cost less than $2B so far, although it hasn’t reached the moon yet. That said, they have done 7 tests, at least 3 with a full configuration. How is that not better than the other option?

Also, you are acting like there are no fundamental advances happening in space engineering. Sure, the physics is pretty well-known, but the engineering problem of landing and reusing stages/rockets commercially has only been done since the Falcon series, so I think it’s safe to assume the technology and associated product lines is still maturing.