The history of current space vehicle technology is a one of high expense and overuse of material. The first vehicles put into space were orbital capsules. Although their size was barely large enough to hold the astronauts who manned them, the technology required to launch them off the ground and into orbit was about 10 times the size of the actual craft.

To achieve a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) - where a vehicle can stay aloft—the first rocket left Earth in several stages. The amount of fuel used to propel the rocket was determined by the weight of the capsule and its payload, the weight of the propellant rockets, and the weight of the fuel itself before lift-off. A certain amount of the rocket assembly is destroyed in the launch, and the remaining parts burned up in the atmosphere once the capsule was delivered to LEO. All that returned to Earth was the orbiting capsule with its payload.

To put a satellite in orbit we must go much higher than LEO to at least 250 miles above the Earth's surface. That requires more fuel, thus more or bigger rockets.

As the United States decided to venture beyond Earth’s orbit and head to the moon, the expense increased dramatically. Not only did we need to propel a ship past LEO, but now the ship needed to carry enough fuel to accelerate to the moon, maintain an orbit for a specified time, then accelerate out of moon orbit and return to Earth. The moment any vehicle goes beyond LEO, it must carry within it the fuel needed to complete its mission and return its payload. That increased fuel meant an increased payload. This greatly added to the weight the rockets had to launch. By the rocket principle of propulsion, an increased payload requires a larger rocket. Along with the increased size and weight of the rockets came an increased fuel need, and … Well, the circle continued, the costs increased exponentially, and still only a fraction of the capital investment returned to Earth, unable to be reused.

By 1981 the United States had developed a reusable craft - NASA’s Space Shuttle. This vehicle, once propelled into space, can carry fuel needed for its mission and its return, and it has horizontal landing capabilities so that it can return to space. However, the it still requires enormous rockets - larger than the craft itself - to launch. With an empty weight of about 63,000 pounds, and its accompanying propellant rockets at about 4 million pounds, NASA’s Space Shuttle costs about $10,000 per pound to complete a mission.

NASA's Space Shuttle uses hundreds of tons of fuel every time a launch occurs, and it must be rebuilt and refinanced each time since the vast majority of capital goes into a product which primarily gets burned up or otherwise becomes unusable.

The present state of the art has reached a ceiling and prohibits any commercial ventures.