Mass is critical. They already changed things in order to be able to eject the mass of the staging ring. I imagine the significant mass of the landing legs and ancilliary equipment capable of supporting such a large rocket would require too much extra fuel ( and the extra fuel required to lift the extra fuel in the first place.)
Space X
- Thread starter ebikeerwidnes
- Start date
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Mass is critical. They already changed things in order to be able to eject the mass of the staging ring. I imagine the significant mass of the landing legs and ancilliary equipment capable of supporting such a large rocket would require too much extra fuel ( and the extra fuel required to lift the extra fuel in the first place.)
dicko
Guru
- Location
- Derbyshire
Space X a fabulous piece of equipment, design, programming and manufacture of that rocket to do the things it does out of this world.
Plans for a 100 man spaceship to the Moon then and Mars are underway so I hear.
Plans for a 100 man spaceship to the Moon then and Mars are underway so I hear.
fossyant
Ride It Like You Stole It!
- Location
- South Manchester
What happened to "starship" on this test - did they try landing that again ?
They did land it in the sea at the precise location they were aiming for. They had moored a buoy with cameras a short distance away and so footage of it toppling over and the residual fuel going boom is available.
Once a Wheeler
…always a wheeler
Sometimes apparantly simple advances have enormous consequences. Water from a tap is not inherantly different from water from a well; but if your village has piped running water it lives at a superior level to a village relying on wells. A high-speed electric charger in your garage transforms EV motoring from hunting out charging points to making useful journeys. Marginal gains and unintended consequences keep us all moving.
Re: Sea Water: True but look at the cost in terms of carrying all that extra fuel needed for braking. But even if you want to pay the penalty of extra payload in fuel, open field is safer, cheaper, probably more reliable.
Re: "An they are not just doing it for kicks are they". Were Musk not involved I'd agree. But ... maybe elaborating on that aspect takes us into the "News, Current Affairs & Politics" forum area. That said publicity and PR has a lot of value when it comes to outdoing competitor billionaires.
Ian
Jameshow
Veteran
Must have had Chinese input....
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
The main reason is quick turnaround. In its final iteration the booster will land, be nabbed by the chopsticks, and the entire gantry will rotate 180° to face the refuelling farm and begin taking on propellant. Theyre aiming for a turnaround of days between flights, or even eventually hours if they can swing it. Sounds barking, but what they achieved already sounded barking a week ago.
The other advantage of dispensing with landing gear for a several hundred tonne tower of steel is the mass saved, which is estimated a additional 20-30 tonnes of payload to orbit instead. That's useful for SpaceX with their own endeavours, and a significant earner in terms of the mass of other people's payloads they can slip in there.
captain nemo1701
Space cadet. Deck 42 Main Engineering.
- Location
- Bristol
I watched it live, impressive tech. As a 60's Apollo kid, it felt oddly nostalgic for those heady days of space exploration. My only qualm is the unhinged billionaire bell-end with the cash and also his obsession with bringing the internet to every square inch of the planet (more for Twitter then, I won't call it 'X') by ruining astronomy with swarms of bright satellites.....
