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Falcon 9 never promised full reusability, only first stage reuse, and it did cause a large reduction in launch costs, as well as pretty obviously representing a
by dotnet00 4y ago
Falcon 9 never promised full reusability, only first stage reuse, and it did cause a large reduction in launch costs, as well as pretty obviously representing a paradigm shift considering all the other reusable rockets in development, the surge in funding for space tech startups and megaconstellations becoming practical for private entities.
To emphasize that last point, on the back of Falcon 9, Starlink represents over half of all satellites in orbit and Falcon 9 itself accounts for nearly half of all orbital launches in the past 2-3 years. The lower costs are also evident from the fact that many lower budget NASA missions which would have previously had to rideshare ended up just getting a dedicated F9 for less than the rideshare would've cost.
- mabbo 4y agoFalcon 9 had "second stage reusability" the same way that Tesla has full self-driving. That was the plan, but then it turned out to be really hard. But at least with SpaceX, they simply gave up and said they were focusing efforts elsewhere.
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- avmich 4y agoBFR is more capable than Falcon, it's only natural to invest in projects with better prospects.
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- dexterdog 4y ago> Falcon 9 had "second stage reusability" the same way that Tesla has full self-driving. So it's in version 11 of the beta?
- 93po 4y agoimagine the meme of two button options to press with the dude sweating over which to choose, and one is "tesla released FSD too fast" and the other is "tesla is keeping FSD in beta forever"
- cubefox 4y agoThough it should be mentioned that SpaceX currently no longer pursues Starship upper stage reusability, as the upcoming upper stage prototypes do no longer have a heat shield. Is seems likely that they want to first finalize lower stage reuse, as it is likely much more expensive to produce.
- DennisP 4y agoThat just means they're not testing reentry in the next several flights. They have a new heat shield design that will fly later.
- _kst_ 4y agoWithout a heat shield, Starship wouldn't be able to bring a crew back from orbit (or higher), regardless of reuse. Starship HLS, the planned lunar landing version, probably won't need a heat shield, but they'll definitely need shielding on any version meant to bring a crew back to Earth. They're just not bothering with heat shielding for tests that don't need it. (I don't know what kind of shielding the Starship that was supposed to launch today has.)
- cubefox 4y agoStarship launching and landing humans on Earth seems quite far away, if it happens at all. Of course they need the heat shield until then, but the much more immediate benefit of the heat shield comes from reducing cost of cargo flights by allowing for reusability of the upper stage. For ordinary non-human payloads, mainly satellites.
- rdhatt 4y agoSecond stage reusability was certainly proposed by SpaceX: https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/04/11/musk-wants-to-make-falcon-9-rocket-fully-reusable/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/04/11/musk-wants-to-make-fal... https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/this-six-year-old-video-from-spacex-is-both-prescient-and-pure-troll/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/this-six-year-old-vi... https://youtu.be/4rC2Z5El-8E https://youtu.be/4rC2Z5El-8E [Everyday Astronaut - Can SpaceX Reuse a second stage?]