I think the definition of workable old ship is going to be different in space, but ultimately you can expand workable envelope for it by over-engineering critical parts. That's kind of what I mean. Right now we don't quite know how to do that efficiently or effectively.

Still remember that at one time moving faster than 15mph was considered insane and pushed the limits of materials and vehicle design. Same for high altitude flight, McMurdo station, deep ocean diving, etc.

In a lot of ways very deep ocean diving is harder than space. The pressure differentials are a lot worse.

The hard part about space is really launch and delta-V budgets.