4 ms·
The starship upper stage has to come back down anyway, so I don’t see why you’d need to double the cost.
by simonh 4y ago
The starship upper stage has to come back down anyway, so I don’t see why you’d need to double the cost.
- TOMDM 4y agoThe upper stage coming down empty vs full of cargo are entirely different beasts surely?
- dev_tty01 4y agoEvery kilogram of mass added to the return trip increases the required deceleration, fuel, etc. Not cheap. At some point you can't reach orbit with the required fuel to get everything back. The Falcon 9 boosters are nearly empty when they come back. As a matter of fact, at least one of their early landing failures was because they cut the fuel load too close and ran out of fuel just before reaching the ground. Minimizing weight on the return landing is critical.