⚠ Cadence Concentrates FragilityModerate threat

A machine tuned for maximum tempo has little slack, and slack is what absorbs shocks. Because so much rides on one vehicle family flown from a handful of pads, a single anomaly — a failed mission, a damaged pad, a regulatory stand-down — can throttle the whole cadence at once, and with it the launch plans of NASA, the Pentagon, and every commercial customer who assumed SpaceX would simply always be there. The company's reliability has been remarkable, but the more the world leans on a single high-tempo provider, the more a rare disruption cascades. Efficiency and resilience pull in opposite directions, and SpaceX has optimized hard for the first — a 167-launch year leaves little slack for a grounding¹.