""I find myself in the position of eating my hat.""
Including the corks?
Poor jokes aside this may be a recognition that smaller ELV's are not quite as cheap to make as people think.
or
Turns out there's a report that describe year on year performance growth of Li ion batteries. It's about 10%/year.
So cost push meets meets technology pull to move reusability along. Note also their size of stage is viable without a custom built chopper to carry it. The jokers are the severe jerk loads (parachute deployment, capture by helicopter) requiring significant mounting hardware --> substantial weight increase.
Exciting times, eh?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
