This section may include some projects with more hype than hope. Small startups continue to work on new innovative launchers: the New Line and Nebula from China, the RFA and Spectrum from Germany, the Miura from Spain, the Prime from Britain, the Hapith from Taiwan, and the Blue Whale from South Korea. (Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey also hope to join the orbital club, but have not yet advanced far enough to have separate articles here.) More ambitiously, Stoke Space is going for full reusability and medium capacity with their Nova. Among larger rockets, Blue Origin’s forthcoming New Glenn looms like a colossus, and if it turns out to be feasible, Britain’s Skylon, if you believe the concept is plausible, has the potential to make orbital costs fall through the floor. The traditional aerospace giants struggle to keep up with the pace of innovation, with only the Vulcan still moving toward deployment.

Many of these proposed rockets are as yet only a half-developed engine. Only a few near the front of the list have a mostly built rocket ready to test any time soon.