Altman is riding a new tech wave, and his team has a couple of years' head start. Musk's reusable rockets were conceptualized a long time ago (Tintin's Destination Moon dates back to 1953) and could have become a reality several decades ago.
"A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities—all these are marks, not ... of superiority but of weakness.”
>"nu uh, it was in scifi first?" Wow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
>NASA had taken on the project grudgingly after having been "shamed" by its very public success under the direction of the SDIO.[citation needed] Its continued success was cause for considerable political in-fighting within NASA due to it competing with their "home grown" Lockheed Martin X-33/VentureStar project. Pete Conrad priced a new DC-X at $50 million, cheap by NASA standards, but NASA decided not to rebuild the craft in light of budget constraints
"Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." - Oscar Wilde