The World’s First Reusable Rocket
Private spaceflight company Blue Origin recently uploaded a video. The clip highlights its team members’ reactions during the groundbreaking touchdown of the world’s first reusable rocket on Nov. 23.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igEWYbnoHc4
Looks staged to me
Damn cool.
This is basically the same thing that Musk is trying to do?
staged tribal psychosis
my ass
>>7704248
Except not even suborbital. Or the first reusable spacecraft.
Blue Origins success is impressive, but for the most part meaningless. It's basically a more advanced version of SpaceX's 'Grasshopper' test craft.
Couldn't they just deploy a parachute? That whole thing looks mighty unstable when the thruster started firing.
>>7704143
>first reusable rocket
these companies sure do have PR money
>>7704280
Yeah, who gives a shit anyway? Mars has more shuttle runways than you can count in an hour.
>>7704280
>Except not even suborbital.
What are you talking about? It did suborbital spaceflight.
Not the first reusable anything (X-15 and shuttle), but it did demonstrate a mode of reusability that is highly suitable for the first stage of an orbital launch system.
Unlike the X-15, it carries a substantial separable payload to space, and unlike the shuttle it's plausible that this thing will be efficiently reusable. They could put an upper stage on top of this thing and go to orbit, but it would have a tiny payload. What they're doing is building a larger, methane-fueled booster to put a much more capable orbital stage on.
Anyway, some exciting news is that SpaceX has gotten Air Force approval to fly back their booster and land it near the launch site. They still need FAA approval.
>>7704248
No. Musk is trying to out do Steve Jobs for attention whoring. He's pretty much screwing around in whatever gets him the most press.
>>7704792
>Anyway, some exciting news is that SpaceX has gotten Air Force approval to fly back their booster and land it near the launch site.
Why would you want to do this, though?
SpaceX isn't messing around with mere straight-up-straight-down-land launches; they're launching to orbit. When their booster is done doing its job it has a really high sideways velocity.
Wouldn't the extra fuel needed to cancel that velocity, burn to a return trajectory, and then land (as opposed to simply: land) eat way into your payload mass ceiling and hurt your per-kg-to-orbit rate?
It would give you a quicker turnaround time for your vehicles, but if your goal is low-cost launches, wouldn't you rather just let your turnaround time be long and invest in additional vehicles to keep your availability up?
