Let’s look at a proxy task. “Rockets landing on their tail”… While SpaceX first pulled it off in 2015.
The DC-X did this first in 1993, although this video is from 1995.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wv9n9Casp1o
(And their budget was 60 million 1991 dollars, Wolfram Alpha says that’s 117 million in 2021 dollars) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
The DC-X did this first in 1993, although this video is from 1995.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wv9n9Casp1o
(And their budget was 60 million 1991 dollars, Wolfram Alpha says that’s 117 million in 2021 dollars) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X