2 ms·

> All that hassle to reduce the terminal velocity by a couple hundred miles an hour. That's the TLDR. The delta-vee from the parachute is not worth the trouble

• mikeash 14y ago
  Or put it another way, parachutes are generally less effective than using a system you already have for other purposes. A parachute probably beats a rocket engine if your only task is landing, but when you already have the rocket engine, you're better off using it for landing than building a completely separate landing system. In short, same basic reason why we use wings and wheels to land airplanes rather than dropping them from a parachute when they reach their destination.