The tree · Launch · Happens to the world · Could be decided within 1 to 5 years
A fully reusable heavy launcher flies 100 orbital missions in one calendar year
Launch cost is set less by the rocket than by how often the same rocket flies. A fully reusable heavy launcher (both stages recovered and reflown) reaching a hundred orbital flights in a single year is the point at which mass to orbit stops being the constraint on everything downstream: stations, habitats, and lunar supply all assume it.
The test: what counts as it having happened
In one calendar year, a launch vehicle rated for at least fifty tonnes to low Earth orbit, whose first and second stages are both designed for recovery and reuse, completes at least 100 orbital launches, counting only flights that reached orbit, with both stages recovered on at least half of the qualifying flights and at least one flight reusing a previously flown first and second stage. Test flights that reached orbit count; suborbital flights and failures do not.
Settled by: Public orbital launch logs, checked against the operator's own flight manifest
The odds, by how long I live
| baselineto 2071 ± 8 | moderateto 2080 | strongto 2095 | radicalto 2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 85% | 90% | 93% | 95% | 96% |
Each column is a different guess at how long I live, from current trends (baseline) to open-ended. The number is the chance this happens before that deadline, assuming everything it depends on happens first. As of September 19th, 2026.
Why these numbers: The partially reusable predecessor passed a hundred flights a year in 2023; full reuse plus a constellation and lunar manifest gets there within the decade, and forty-five years is a long time to miss.
What this one is worth
If this happened tomorrow and nothing else changed, the chance that I live and work off Earth by 2071 goes from 0.5% to 0.5% (too small to tell apart from chance). If it turned out no, the same number goes to 0.0% (−0.5 points).
| Longevity scenario | baseline2071 ± 8 | moderate2080 | strong2095 | radical2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The headline as it stands | 0.5% | 1.2% | 3.8% | 11% | 15% |
| If this settled yes now | 0.5% | 1.2% | 3.9% | 11% | 15% |
| If this settled no now | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
This is what the site says in advance, before the thing happens. When it does, the
ledger entry that records it quotes this figure beside what actually followed, so a
reader can see whether the prediction held. Worked out at the run
2026-10-11-scan by holding this step at each outcome in turn and
playing the whole tree out again, 20,000 times per
scenario. That is a throw of the dice, so a move smaller than about
0.10 points is inside the noise rather than
a finding.
What the ledger says about this step
- Starship reached orbit for the first time on September 28th, 2026, but neither stage was caught, so the launch steps stay where they were 2026-10-04 Widely reported, moved nothing · this step was read against it and did not move · found by the weekly web scan
- Forty-one steps had their criteria tightened so that two readers would agree when each has happened, with no number moved for that alone 2026-09-20 The tree itself changed
The last 3 checks
Once a week the tree is read against the news, node by node, against the test above. Open a line to see what that week held. Every check ever made on this node is on the Radar page.
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2026-11-01 Nothing new
Starship has flown 14 times as of mid-October 2026 with Flight 14 on September 28th, 2026 the first orbital flight, and no fully reusable vehicle is near 100 orbital launches in a year. Nothing in the leaf window since October 25th, 2026 bears on the criterion.
-
2026-10-25 Nothing new
Nothing new bearing on the criterion in the week to October 25th, 2026. Starship has flown about three times in 2026 (Flight 13 on July 24th, 2026, Flight 14 on September 28th, 2026), no ship has been reflown, and SpaceX's stated aim is weekly launches in the first half of 2027, far from 100 qualifying launches in a calendar year.
-
2026-10-18 Nothing new
Nothing new in the week to October 18th, 2026. Starship flies a few times a year, Flight 15 is not expected before mid-November, and no ship has been reflown, so 100 qualifying launches in a year is far off.
Revisions
| Date | Field | From | To | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-19 | resolution | 'heavy' undefined; a vehicle designed for reuse but flown expendable would have counted | rated for at least fifty tonnes to low Earth orbit, both stages recovered on at least half of the qualifying flights, and at least one flight reusing a previously flown first and second stage | Step 27 outside-model review, item 56 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): the node's point is flight rate driven by reuse, and as written a hundred expendable flights of a reusable design counted. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
Notes
Written September 8th, 2026 as the schema's worked example. Probability comes in Phase 3. Edge drawn at step 7: a hundred flights a year of a fully reusable launcher needs both stages to have been recovered at least once.
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The record itself is data/L-launch.toml in the public repository.