"Atmospheric reentry speed is more than twice as fast as a bullet from an assault rifle," Elon Musk said late last night, "and this is the largest flying object ever made."
That is the most powerful rocket ever to fly. And instead of falling into the ocean when its job was done, it returned like a fiery high-tech boomerang to exactly where it started. In just two or three years from now — maybe less — SpaceX will launch, catch, refuel, and have each Heavy Booster ready to fly again in hours.
Flight Test 8 is supposed to include the Ship's first full orbit of the Earth and the first attempt to catch both the upper and lower stages. If successful, it will mark the start of fully reusable rocketry — the Holy Grail of space travel.
People have been dreaming about this for at least a hundred years. The problems were known at least 50 years ago. It just mostly needed someone who could gather the brains to find solutions, not afraid to change their path when necessary (Starship and SuperHeavy were envisioned as carbon fiber at first) and has the balls to make it work.
ReplyDelete" "Atmospheric reentry speed is more than twice as fast as a bullet from an assault rifle," Elon Musk said late last night "
ReplyDeleteDON'T use the language of the Left, Elon. That just reinforces a false narrative.
Language now has ideology? It is just words.
DeleteAssault rifle (which is a real thing, specifically a select-fire rifle firing an intermediate cartridge), not assault weapon (which is a term made up by Josh Sugarman to mean "any gun we want to ban").
DeleteMajor Astro would be proud.
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty sobering to think that their (SpaceX) intent is to have thousand of these rockets that will fly, return, reload and relaunch within on hour.
ReplyDeleteThe mastering of reusable spacecraft as mastered in the Falcons, and Starlink will prove to be the most influential development in human history, second only to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Amazing what free enterprise can do as opposed to NASA and their Muslim outreach.
ReplyDelete