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Highest altitude followed by a powered landing by SpaceX: 1,000 m Highest altitude followed by a powered landing by Blue Origin: 100,500 m Moreover, SpaceX ha
by cmsmith 11y ago
Highest altitude followed by a powered landing by SpaceX: 1,000 m
Highest altitude followed by a powered landing by Blue Origin: 100,500 m
Moreover, SpaceX has gotten close to a powered landing from space a half dozen times, but has mostly failed in the last 100m. You could argue that Blue Origin just did the hard part that SpaceX hasn't been able to do. Obviously the difficulty doesn't really scale linearly like that, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss this accomplishment.
- sandworm101 11y agoWhat Kerbal does teach users is that altitude is irrelevant for space travel. Speed is what matters. The "hard part" is pushing something to a useful velocity before attempting a landing. Returning a booster from to near-zero velocity from a near-orbital velocity is far more of an accomplishment than returning from altitude.
- cmsmith 11y agoAs far as I know, the Falcon 9 first stage has never gotten close to orbital velocity. 2km/s is better than 0 km/s, but is a long way from 7 km/s.
- innerspirit 11y agoIt's probably worth mentioning that the SpaceX Falcon 9 can carry a 13,000kg payload, vs a 770kg payload for the Blue Origin New Shepard.
- JshWright 11y ago> You could argue that Blue Origin just did the hard part that SpaceX hasn't been able to do. You missed one critical difference. New Shepard (and Grasshopper) can hover. The fact that Falcon 9 (during its landing phase) has a thrust-to-weight ratio > 1 means that their "hard part" is _much_ harder than New Shepard's "hard part".