Question is is retrieval cost cheaper than manufacture costs ? It ' s more , Is analysis and repair cost cheaper than manufacturing cost while maintaining the same level of quality ? The amount of stress and heat that is produced by a rocket launch makes it damn near impossible to truly predict the effect that it will have on it ' s components . Meanwhile the margin for error is minuscule and a failure can be catastrophic . When rockets are built they inspect each part down to the nuts and bolts . Then they assemble each component and inspect them , then attach it to paired components and inspect that , then assemble the whole thing and inspect that . I don ' t know how you get that level of quality control on reuse unless you tear the whole thing apart and put it back together again . That ' s not to say its impossible , NASA has successfully reused Orbiters for years . The big difference though is that in NASA ' s setup the Boosters are what produces the majority of the launch thrust and take the majority of the punishment . With the Falcon 9 , the whole idea is that the primary launch engine is what is being reused . I hope it works out and makes Space flight more accessible , but we ' re still a few more years away from any real conclusions .