It's not like vertical landing of rocket is something spacex has never done before. I'm guessing they're experimenting with something in these crash landings...
It's not like vertical landing of rocket is something spacex has never done before. I'm guessing they're experimenting with something in these crash landings...
Partially successful?Originally Posted by Rare White Ape
Agreed that they have to have expectations that it could go wrong.
Im sure the landing is a big part of the test. While the configuration is new, so its all a test of new stuff, the landing is the most complex part and relatively newest trick.
And as we have seen - by far the most likely to go wrong in early prototypes.
Im pretty sure that this will work, just like their first few attempts with the boosters didnt succeed, they got it right and now it seems reliable.
Next time...
Eh. I'll give it five more goes.
But these are only test articles, and they'll have to move along to the next prototype phase, and the next, and the next. Getting it to space and having it land, then getting it to orbit, and having it land. Then building one that can be re-used, sent back up to orbit, and then put through the stresses of another landing.
And then comes the question of landing them on Mars, where something like 50% of all the missions humanity has sent have resulted in failure. Thin atmosphere and high re-entry speeds are very difficult to contend with. And we've never sent anything back from Mars... yet. The first planned mission (edit: second. The last one failed on launch) to do this is only two weeks away from its 50/50 chance of failing before it even hits the ground.
How much of all this do they have to do before they even begin to plan for human-rating for this potentially-40-passenger behemoth?
Another edit: and they're building these outdoors in a dusty paddock in Texas!
Last edited by Rare White Ape; February 3rd, 2021 at 03:27 PM.
What is so amazing is that most people probably believe SpaceX will eventually succeed even if we lose count of how many failures these prototypes had...
Anyway, this 2nd flight really looked worse than the 1st one.
Awesome stuff
That twitter link has some seriously salty bitches commenting on it.
Good video about why we need to explore Mars. It's not too long, either.
They’re right to be upset, but NASA should not be their target.
Why Mars?
I agree that the search for life, even extinct, is probably one of the biggest questions of all time. If they find life it will tell us a hell of a lot. We go from "Earth is the only known life in the universe" to "look here is another, independent set of life".
And yes its the nearest planet that can be explored. Venus is pretty much instant death even to probes. Next best places will be moons of the gas giants. Till then, Mars is it baby!
Im NOT a fan of the "oh climate, need Mars as backup" because thats a hundred year project that is probably way easier in another 100 or 200 years. And as much as we are screwing things up, we arent going to make the whole planet inhospitable for quite some time. Not to the stage of "easier to modify Mars than fix Earth"
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