4 ms·

Here's an idea...maybe companies could play "nice" together...and have like a rocket "meeting place" where rockets basically go after they deliver payload. Then

Here's an idea...maybe companies could play "nice" together...and have like a rocket "meeting place" where rockets basically go after they deliver payload. Then spacex's BFR goes up, some robot collects them all inside the ship and loads them...brings them home.... saving lots of money for everyone and spacex maybe pockets a retrieval fee per rocket based on weight or something.... This is assuming small rockets are also expensive and could save money if they could reuse them.

natosaichek 5y ago
Most of the rockets listed are 2-stage rockets. The first stage never makes it to orbit - it just falls back down to earth after dropping off the second stage. The second stage often does make it to orbit, where it deploys the payload and then usually becomes orbital debris. A few upper stages (falcon 9, for example) do a small engine burn to reenter the atmosphere where they burn up. Collecting upper stages would be... hard. Every rocket is on a different trajectory. Making some vessel that could 'collect' them would have to visit every launch trajectory that they'd each taken, which is a lot of orbital maneuvering and coordination. Then the problem of docking and collecting the stages and packaging them for reentry would be a whole series of ridiculously tough engineering challenges. The upper stage is much smaller than the first stage, so it's usually significantly cheaper than the first stage. Basically, recovery of the upper stage is much harder than recovery of the first stage and has less upside.