6 ms·

No one was landing booster rockets again after launch in the 60's...

by cyberferret 10y ago

maverick_iceman 10y ago
Ya sure, landing booster rockets is a way bigger deal than sending men to the Moon.
- MrFlynn 10y ago
  > Ya sure, landing booster rockets is a way bigger deal than sending men to the Moon. I don’t think anyone is claiming that. They’re both impressive feats in their own right.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Some might argue that having an unlimited budget, and nearly a million people working on a project, and utilising 'throwaway technology' would be arbitrarily easier than trying to do it with private funding. Moon travel is not a common everyday thing now, because the original effort wasn't geared for that - it was primarily to put a man on the moon as fast as possible, before the Russians did it. If the aircraft industry worked the same way and airlines had to throw away a 747 after each flight, it wouldn't be an every day thing like it is now. SpaceX are essentially setting up the future building blocks for far more affordable and common space flight now. It is a longer path, and IMO no less difficult than what NASA was doing back in the 50's and 60's.
  - babyrainbow 10y ago
    >SpaceX are essentially setting up the future building blocks for far more affordable and common space flight now. What exactly is the breakthroughs/discoveries that Spacex have made that will justify the claim. Please note that landing the rocket does not count. Because I don't think it involved something new, some new technique that was unknown before.
    - rohit89 10y ago
      Landing the rocket is the first step in figuring out reuse. Its irrelevant that it probably did not involve some scientific breakthrough - in fact it makes it all the more sadder that no-one bothered to do it before. Same situation with Tesla. No breakthroughs there either. Now imagine all the things we can do right now but aren't because no-one is interested in funding it.
    - qaq 10y ago
      If you arbitrarily dismiss things because you "don't think it involved something new" that's a fairly random criteria.
    - simonh 10y ago
      >What exactly is the breakthroughs/discoveries that Spacex have made that will justify the claim. The breakthrough is actually doing it. A lot of space engineers were saying before Falcon 9 that what SoaceX were trying to do was impossible. Hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to see now what steps were required to pull this off and that clearly those steps were possible. But if it's so clear, why wasn't it done before? The ottoman line is only Must and SoaceX were prepared to get the job done. Nobody else was even trying.
      - babyrainbow 10y ago
        >The breakthrough is actually doing it... That is not a breakthrough.
        snovv_crash 10y ago
        Not all breakthroughs are just theory. If you can show me someone actually managing to land a launch-capable rocket, and not just some testbed demo capable of throttling to less than hover, I'm all ears. The only other player in this space is Blue Origin, and they are still working on their commercially-viable engines. Everybody else throws away their rocket after the launch.
        10y ago
- _ph_ 10y ago
  Both of them are big deals. Landing on the Moon was a historic event, the first (and unfortuately one of the few) time a human being stepped onto something that is not the earth. That is a one-time historic landmark to be listed in history books from now on. Landing rocket boosters is a very big deal in practical terms as this should reduce the cost of going to space to a point where it becomes more accessible. The shuttle was an attempt to achieve the same, but while being a technological marvel, it failed to reduce costs (quite the contrary) and was abandoned. Everyone else so far at best managed to keep the cost of one-time use rockets low, but SpaceX should have a break-through there, and that is why this matters so much.
grkvlt 10y ago
NASA did operate the STS throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s though, which landed and re-used, albeit expensively, the orbital space-plane component.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  Letting bulk cylindrical metal shells slam into the ocean is a bit less sophisticated than tail landing a liquid fueled rocket. Landing the orbiter was a technical tour de force, but the effort went into increasing cross-range, taking away from the economics.
lmm 10y ago
Nasa was landing and reusing the main engines of an orbital launch system is the early '80s. SpaceX hasn't actually reflown anything yet - the landing is cool and all but it's a pointless stunt unless and until they can actually refly the boosters they've landed.
- dcposch 10y ago
  Sort of. The Shuttle was reusable only in the loosest sense: - Most of the launch tankage was discarded after each flight - Boosters were basically rebuilt after each flight - Cost per pound to LEO wasn't remotely competitive with 60s vintage expendable systems like Soyuz SpaceX has a new, simpler and much better design. Even when flown fully expendable, the F9 is highly cost competitive. With the first stage landing, most of the launch tankage and 9/10 engines can be reused. SpaceX is poised to dramatically reduce the cost of going to space for the first time since the advent of spaceflight.
  - lmm 10y ago
    > The Shuttle was reusable only in the loosest sense I specifically mentioned the main engines. And we can't really compare with the F9 when, once again, it has never been reflown. A lot more of the Shuttle was intended to be reusable than ended up being the case - who's to say how that will play out for the F9? > Cost per pound to LEO wasn't remotely competitive with 60s vintage expendable systems like Soyuz Soyuz is an excellent system, but it didn't have anything like the lift capacity of the Shuttle. The Shuttle wasn't cheap, but it was designed for a particular set of requirements - some of them reasonable, some of them less so - and for a much higher launch rate than actually happened, for a variety of reasons.
    - ansible 10y ago
      I specifically mentioned the main engines. And we can't really compare with the F9 when, once again, it has never been reflown. A lot more of the Shuttle was intended to be reusable than ended up being the case - who's to say how that will play out for the F9? The shuttle main engines required a lot of maintenance and inspection after each flight. That's to be expected at the start of a program, but they never got away from that.

No one was landing booster rockets again after launch in the 60's...

maverick_iceman 10y ago

Ya sure, landing booster rockets is a way bigger deal than sending men to the Moon.

MrFlynn 10y ago
> Ya sure, landing booster rockets is a way bigger deal than sending men to the Moon. I don’t think anyone is claiming that. They’re both impressive feats in their own right.
cyberferret 10y ago
Some might argue that having an unlimited budget, and nearly a million people working on a project, and utilising 'throwaway technology' would be arbitrarily easier than trying to do it with private funding. Moon travel is not a common everyday thing now, because the original effort wasn't geared for that - it was primarily to put a man on the moon as fast as possible, before the Russians did it. If the aircraft industry worked the same way and airlines had to throw away a 747 after each flight, it wouldn't be an every day thing like it is now. SpaceX are essentially setting up the future building blocks for far more affordable and common space flight now. It is a longer path, and IMO no less difficult than what NASA was doing back in the 50's and 60's.
- babyrainbow 10y ago
  >SpaceX are essentially setting up the future building blocks for far more affordable and common space flight now. What exactly is the breakthroughs/discoveries that Spacex have made that will justify the claim. Please note that landing the rocket does not count. Because I don't think it involved something new, some new technique that was unknown before.
  - rohit89 10y ago
    Landing the rocket is the first step in figuring out reuse. Its irrelevant that it probably did not involve some scientific breakthrough - in fact it makes it all the more sadder that no-one bothered to do it before. Same situation with Tesla. No breakthroughs there either. Now imagine all the things we can do right now but aren't because no-one is interested in funding it.
  - qaq 10y ago
    If you arbitrarily dismiss things because you "don't think it involved something new" that's a fairly random criteria.
  - simonh 10y ago
    >What exactly is the breakthroughs/discoveries that Spacex have made that will justify the claim. The breakthrough is actually doing it. A lot of space engineers were saying before Falcon 9 that what SoaceX were trying to do was impossible. Hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to see now what steps were required to pull this off and that clearly those steps were possible. But if it's so clear, why wasn't it done before? The ottoman line is only Must and SoaceX were prepared to get the job done. Nobody else was even trying.
    - babyrainbow 10y ago
      >The breakthrough is actually doing it... That is not a breakthrough.
      - snovv_crash 10y ago
        Not all breakthroughs are just theory. If you can show me someone actually managing to land a launch-capable rocket, and not just some testbed demo capable of throttling to less than hover, I'm all ears. The only other player in this space is Blue Origin, and they are still working on their commercially-viable engines. Everybody else throws away their rocket after the launch.
        10y ago
_ph_ 10y ago
Both of them are big deals. Landing on the Moon was a historic event, the first (and unfortuately one of the few) time a human being stepped onto something that is not the earth. That is a one-time historic landmark to be listed in history books from now on. Landing rocket boosters is a very big deal in practical terms as this should reduce the cost of going to space to a point where it becomes more accessible. The shuttle was an attempt to achieve the same, but while being a technological marvel, it failed to reduce costs (quite the contrary) and was abandoned. Everyone else so far at best managed to keep the cost of one-time use rockets low, but SpaceX should have a break-through there, and that is why this matters so much.

grkvlt 10y ago

NASA did operate the STS throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s though, which landed and re-used, albeit expensively, the orbital space-plane component.

stcredzero 10y ago
Letting bulk cylindrical metal shells slam into the ocean is a bit less sophisticated than tail landing a liquid fueled rocket. Landing the orbiter was a technical tour de force, but the effort went into increasing cross-range, taking away from the economics.

lmm 10y ago

Nasa was landing and reusing the main engines of an orbital launch system is the early '80s. SpaceX hasn't actually reflown anything yet - the landing is cool and all but it's a pointless stunt unless and until they can actually refly the boosters they've landed.

dcposch 10y ago
Sort of. The Shuttle was reusable only in the loosest sense: - Most of the launch tankage was discarded after each flight - Boosters were basically rebuilt after each flight - Cost per pound to LEO wasn't remotely competitive with 60s vintage expendable systems like Soyuz SpaceX has a new, simpler and much better design. Even when flown fully expendable, the F9 is highly cost competitive. With the first stage landing, most of the launch tankage and 9/10 engines can be reused. SpaceX is poised to dramatically reduce the cost of going to space for the first time since the advent of spaceflight.
- lmm 10y ago
  > The Shuttle was reusable only in the loosest sense I specifically mentioned the main engines. And we can't really compare with the F9 when, once again, it has never been reflown. A lot more of the Shuttle was intended to be reusable than ended up being the case - who's to say how that will play out for the F9? > Cost per pound to LEO wasn't remotely competitive with 60s vintage expendable systems like Soyuz Soyuz is an excellent system, but it didn't have anything like the lift capacity of the Shuttle. The Shuttle wasn't cheap, but it was designed for a particular set of requirements - some of them reasonable, some of them less so - and for a much higher launch rate than actually happened, for a variety of reasons.
  - ansible 10y ago
    I specifically mentioned the main engines. And we can't really compare with the F9 when, once again, it has never been reflown. A lot more of the Shuttle was intended to be reusable than ended up being the case - who's to say how that will play out for the F9? The shuttle main engines required a lot of maintenance and inspection after each flight. That's to be expected at the start of a program, but they never got away from that.