The Yellow Dart

The shuttle was one of the most bloated govt. projects in history. Perhaps if the Air Force hadn't gotten involved and thrown a nightmare of unnecessary requirements at the project, they had hope of creating a sensible reusable vehicle, but that didn't happen. The Falcon9 as a launch vehicle is already designed, in production in operation and well on its way to reuse. All of the things you list will have already been accounted for by SpaceX. There could certainly be unexpected problems, but the comparative simplicity of the F9 will limit how much they can run up the costs. Sorry, I know I'm fanboyin' it up right now, but the F9 and the Space Shuttle are not remotely the same thing.

All the naysayers keep saying this, that somehow the Falcon9 is going to turn into a Space Shuttle when it comes to reuse/refurbishing. How could anyone ever think that? The complexity of the space shuttle is ridiculous compared to a simple straight-forward rocket; they are simply not comparable vehicles. Furthermore, the F9 and Merlin engines were designed by SpaceX from the beginning with reuse in mind. SpaceX has shown the world many times that they can accomplish their goals, so when there is actually reason to doubt Falcon9 reuse, please let me know. Edit: Not to mention that SpaceX is already well and rightly known for being able to keep costs down.

Correct, the heating is due to extremely high pressure that the air reaches before it can get out of the spacecrafts way. If you made a very slender spike, or something like a pointed spear, that pointed perfectly prograde as it descended, it would sort of achieve what you are looking for. You would lessen the heating by making it easier for the air to move out of the way and could dip further into the atmosphere before experiencing heating, but by that same token, that object would not slow down nearly as much as an object of the same mass but is, say, spherical. Since you almost invariably are looking to slow down when you slam something into an atmosphere at orbital speeds, this doesn't usually end up being useful.

Yeah, Titan. Flying, plus a completely foreign weather system, and huge lakes and who knows what else.

This maybe old news to you guys. If so, disregard. SpaceX aiming for November for Falcon Heavy launch. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/11/spacex_first_falcon_heavy_liftoff/

Hold Hold Hold Launch Abort....

Let's Go Falcon9!

While solar freakin' roadways probably isn't the best idea, I do feel like any where that the highway has overhead lights (all over most large cities), they should just replace the lights with a tall T-shaped solar panel mount that also has the lights built into it. After all, the power lines are obviously already there, it just make sense to me.

I would imagine mars is the only place it would be necessary apart from earth, due to atmosphere. On the moon and Ceres it just make more sense to do a "railgun" thing on the surface (can't remember the proper name for that idea), since there is no atmosphere to contend with and that technology would be dead simple in comparison. I don't imagine it will ever be tried on earth because of all of the difficulty of it, the high gravity, satellite avoidance, the material requirements, difficulty of construction. I imagine (but don't know for sure) the atmosphere on Mars is thick enough to cause problems/difficulty with the rail gun idea, and the lower gravity might make an elevator simple enough to be valuable, without having tremendous amounts of maintenance and a huge number of people to take care of it, run it, make sure space debris and satellites don't destroy it, etc. But this could be completely wrong, it would still be a tremendous undertaking I'm sure, and would require quite a large population on Mars to make it worth while. edit: I should say quite a lot of interest/need on Mars rather than population. You can still have large amounts of cargo to get on/off, without having lots of people.

Here is a pretty cool shot of the successful landing:

Or maybe they are, for any number of possible reasons, just being quiet about it. Managing expectations is pretty important for a big, well known company. Musk just mentioned at the hyperloop comp "If you're trying to create a company, uh, it's important to, uh, limit the number of miracles in series." (that is sure to become a household phrase in the days to come. It just rolls off the tongue.) It makes perfect sense to keep it under wraps until there is actually something to show people.

Aww man! That was a beautiful landing!! Darn you Leg number 3! You had one job to do. One job! *Be a leg* That's it. At least this time we didn't have to see the little thruster at the top being sad and impotent as it slowly tips and falls over.

I think the problem was mechanical, and had nothing to do with speed or the barge or waves. The leg folded out but didn't lock, and so when it touched down, that leg folded back up and the the rocket tipped. Here is Scott Manley's response on twitter: https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/688806812464758786 p.s. How do you post the fancy tweet thing like people did above?

Well actually the recovery team is like 10 miles away for saftey so if they really did loose feed, even SpaceX may not know the status until they get there.

AUGH! That freeze almost seemed like it was deliberate. Come on, just tell us if you don't want to show us. We're big boys. We can take it. I understand. I don't think tipping after landing will be as much of an issue as the difference in height second by second. It has to be near zero velocity for the legs not to get damages and that would be like going down stairs and one step is 3 inches lower than expected. Here is a pretty cool video of the launch from above the sea of fog: https://twitter.com/bayourat/status/688797191649931264

I also think that once SpaceX starts serious work on Mars, NASA and ESA will want to partner with them, pooling resources and making this more feasible. I think Elon would be more than happy to do this as he only cares about achieving the goal, not how it happens. NASA has thus far been very open to and encouraging of SpaceX's innovations and ambitions.

I think people who say it won't happen because there is no business-sense in it are ignoring the fact that SpaceX is a private company and Elon Musk is essentially the Captain of the ship. I'm sure he'd like to be able to make money on it, or at least come close, but Elon wants people on Mars. That was the sole reason he started a rocket company without any previous experience in the field. He saw that NASA had no plans to do it so he decided to use his own money toward doing it himself, and everything he has done with SpaceX has been working towards getting spaceboots on the ground on Mars. So even if the economics don't work out like he thinks, and the MCT never happens, and we never see 1 million humans on Mars, you can bet that as long as SpaceX is still in business, Elon Musk will keep trying to get people there. As far as having enough business to make reusablility feasible, that is based on the cost of putting something into orbit before SpaceX. The aerospace market is slower than conventional markets, and is still reacting and adapting to SpaceX lowering the price of getting to orbit even before reusability. It is reasonable to assume that the number of potential Falcon9 customers will go up over the next decade in response to this. I don't know if it will go up enough for reusability (IMO, I think there is already enough business to make it work) but either way SpaceX will be at the very least financially secure for the foreseeable future.

I think it could definitely still be useful. After all, it doesn't take that much strength to hold in 1atm. You can use the structures in the same way as a bike tire and bike tube, just bring along an air tight liner, build a cylindrical structure, reinforced by something light and packable like stands of nylon or kevlar. Insert your liner and inflate. The "adobe" holds the liner's shape and protects from radiation.

Just going by how Musk's off-the-cuff predictions usually turn out, I'd say late 2030s rather than right around 2030 as he says. He is a really smart guy and a great problem solver, but he seems to make best-possible-scenario estimates that assume perfectly smooth sailing in the future and that usually isn't the case, especially when the time frame in question is well over a decade.

It also said he hadn't actually seen it, and that that was second hand info, so maybe some wires got crossed and someone misunderstood someone. I think if they were going to show it, it would have been in that video so I'm guessing the soot got the camera.

Yeah, I've been thinking that they haven't shown it because it was either iced over at some point or smoked up during descent and you just can't see anything during landing. The way the side of the booster looked, I can't imagine any downward facing camera would be able to get good video.

Wow this looks amazing! 2 questions: 1. Does this make launch clamps manditory or can rockets still support weight? I'm fine with either way but it could cause problems for early career games before launch clamps are unlocked. 2. Would you consider incorporating the engineer's repair ability into this, or is that beyond the scope of the mod? Thanks!

I'd say it is because government organizations gravitate toward what they have already done and know. Like the US got one successful Mars rover, so let that expertise go to waste? Send more rovers! If you put a bunch of money and research into landing on Venus, then change your mind and go for Mars or elsewhere, most of that money and time and research was useless and you are mostly starting from "scratch" (apart from a large space program and a bunch of smart people in your employ). It would seem easier and more attainable to go for what you already started on, even if you have had multiple failures already like Venera. Just a guess though.

I live in Ohio and Pittsburgh is the worst. Just sayin'.