RealTesla

Shotwell is a liar for Musk and just as culpable as him for SpaceX's marketing liberties.

As for your first (easily researched) question.

First fully private space transport company- OTRAG in 1975

First government "spin-out" Arianespace in 1980

First commercial rocket- Conestoga in 1982

First commercially successful rocket- Pegasus from Orbital Sciences Corporation founded in 1982, IPO in 1990. First Pegasus launch in 1990.

First fully vertically integrated (business) commercial rocket company - Beal Aerospace in 1997

Space Vector was working on DARPA FALCON in 2002 as Musk was looking for staff. Perhaps this is where the name came from?

The reason most companies started focusing on expendable vehicles again was NSDD 42 issued by Reagan in 1982 requesting expendable launch vehicles from suppliers. There was also the issue of needing to launch maximum payload, which made carrying fuel for recovery a non-starter.

Lockheed performed a study on reusability in the 1960s to see if it was economically feasible to reuse launch vehicles for everything from a space station to a moon base. So this idea was not new, not unknown, and not experimented with.

The ROMBUS study from 1964 demonstrated the potential to have reusable orbital modules and shuttles. Launches would use a modular vertical takeoff and landing (stop me when this sounds familiar) system. ROMBUS's design reads basically like Starship, and it's from 1964.

SpaceX has failed by their own benchmark to have a commercially viable reusable vehicle, since their refit times are still three weeks and they can't recover fairings or upper stages still. There's no cost justification to do this, so it's an obvious priority to cancel.

Resuable Vehicles

• Russian R-1B missile was fully recoverable and resuable. In 1951.
• X33 VentureStar SSTO
• X34
• X43
• Shuttle first stage
• Shuttle SRB
• SpaceShip One
• SpaceShip Two
• Falcon
• Rotary Rocket Roton SSTO, VTOL

Were all of them viable? No. Is SSTO a fool's errand? Yes. Is full recovery necessary for lost costs? No. Was SpaceX the first full recovery of the lower stage(s)? No.

If Shuttle doesn't count as a reusable vehicle, then neither is Starship. Shuttle actively contributed to launch with its own engines and the external tank.