CptRichardson

I hate that they're still funding the SLS when they should be performing the 'shower them with money' gif all over SpaceX.

A leg bent, and the core is ever so slightly off. But a lot of it seems to be from the leg bending. Also, have some KSP footage of a recreation of the-- Oh. It's not a recreation, it's the entire reentry through the atmosphere sped up to thirty seconds from the stage camera.

You can confirm it by looking at the angle of the engines to the deck, which is off as well (but not to the same extent). Like they mention, it looks like the leg on the far side crumpled slightly from the stress.

Watching the video, that first stage appears to be very visibly BENT. I think we found the absolute upper limit of the landing capacity. You can see it getting a 5-10 degree list to the left on the video.

Mass was three tons.

Never going to happen because our government is made up of short-sighted fools who can't think long term. SpaceX will get anywhere well ahead of modern NASA.

You're talking about the SpaceX space program's far, far future plans after it basically takes over Mars and becomes a national identity unto itself?

Great. Life thriving. What about the damage on the path to there? Billions of homes flooded, the current places we grow our food turned to dust bowls and potentially not replaced at all, mass desertification, hundreds of trillions in economic damage as nice places like NYC, London, and other such pretty critical cities suffer flood damage or wash out to sea entirely depending on the specifics of their location, on and on. Sea fisheries stressed to the point of collapse, dropping even more food out of circulation, possible hydrogen sulfide producing bacteria blooms killing off massive zones in the ocean from sea warming happening so quickly; While the end state might maybe be desirable, the uncontrolled and nearly unprecedented rate of change in Earth's climate to get there is going to be catastrophic on ecosystems and could well knock our nice global economy into the grave. About the only things that compare in terms of quickness of change would be an asteroidal impact, or one of the mega-trap eruptions like Deccan or the Siberian traps, or in general, even if we could theoretically survive it would not be a pleasant place for us, and the very fact that it's only theoretical that we could adapt means it'd really be better if we didn't damage the planetary paint at all when we could just not do the damage altogether.

Big thing would be armoring the engine bay, possibly with some kind of ceramic or titanium plating. That's almost certainly where most of the damage took place. Put easily toastable bits behind a lightweight shield to protect them. Might cut a ton off the launch capacity, but given... well, the whole 'twenty tons to leo' that's not bad. The GTO would hurt, but some more tweaks to the engines and fuel systems should free up spare capacity. I don't see it likely that the sides are too damaged. Maybe needing a sandblasting and repaint to restore the protective coating. If there's heat penetration damage weakening the structure of the rocket I'm not sure how we'd find out without trying a test-launch just to see what happens.

Why would they need to research stronger chutes? They've made it abundantly clear that they're propulsively landing, have a manner and method by which they intend to do it, and have demonstrated all the required components to make it work. They don't need R&D for 'more powerful antennas', as the easy thing to do would be to use the Deep Space Network (the thing explicitly designed to make it easier for probes with weaker antennas to be designed). As for the D2, once more, why do you think that these insane costs are going to be the case when SpaceX has demonstrated that they are more than capable of lowering them (by outright orders of magnitude). I've already pointed out how silly it is to propose that the D2 will be a limited production craft when there will be clear and necessary need for a much larger stable of them for future commercial activity. I've pointed out to you multiple times that the current price (PROJECTED, no less) for a FH launch is going to drop rapidly once SpaceX starts relaunching rockets (starting this month no less). I've pointed out to you multiple times that that price tag is vastly excessive for the likely real price point of a D2 by simple fact that they're going to be in a much larger production stable. You're inanely pessimistic about a company that has actually demonstrated themselves as better than NASA at launching things, continually proclaiming them unable to do the things that they've already demonstrated IRL in action. If it weren't for an outside party screwing them over last year, we'd already have their first relaunch now. Your worst case scenario is at most $250 million, easily affordable and repeatable given the ever-increasing launch tempo building up a cash reserve. I make no bones about the fact that their schedule has slipped in the past, but the fact of the matter is that they've managed to either achieve everything they've set out to do so far, or outright make it obsolete in a few cases. Why do you insist on underestimating the company and swearing they'll never last even while they are beating every last one of their competitors upside the head like Jebidiah Kerman and the controls of any vehicle? How many times does it take before you realize that they're more than capable of doing it? Land a rocket? Done. Land on a barge? Done. Cut launch costs to a tenth of previous? Done, going even further down. Land from GTO? Done. Relaunch? Twelve days to done. FH? Being done right now. And as for the MCT being 'vaporware', that's the latest in a pile of falsehoods, inanities, and pessimism. Musk wants to go to mars. More importantly, everyone else would rather like having a lift to LEO rating of 'yes' grade rocket for setting up proper orbital infrastructure, and we already know of at least two companies who will pay SpaceX for building it no matter what. Just, stop. SpaceX will do it. They might be a year or two late, but they have a consistent track record of 'Yes, yes we will'.

And why? SpaceX would need more for operations in LEO for things such as moving around LEO for operations, landing science packages, sending common probe systems to other planets and the moon, etc. The MCT capsule is actually going to be likely too big for normal ops, and they'll need the more granular capabilities of a D2 for doing putzing around the local area and handling tasks such as delivering supplies, smaller shipments of personnel, and shuttling back and forth around the inevitable space stations and orbital construction yards needed for their mars colony project.

Why would it cost '500 million'? We already have SpaceX's figures for the worst-case launch of a FH, and it's less than a sixth of that. Do you REALLY think the capsule itself would make up the balance? Please, they'll be mass-producing that, too. A SpaceX mission to drop a RD on mars would probably be $120 million-ish at most, possibly down to only half of that if they get re-use properly working.

They're likely to actually begin armoring the engine bay to minimize the chance of fires or damage. Probably titanium or niobium sheets with an ablative ceramic layer atop for shielding. Not much, but enough to keep things from getting toasty.

No, it got bumped forward from late june according to the launch schedule. Also, the site doesn't mention stuff about re-use period. They just give launch dates they know about.

Huh. They moved the next launch up by a month for the F9. Looks like we'll see how well an F9 can re-launch in 20 days. A Thaicom launch on may 26th a 1740 EST. Then we've got a Sat constellation launch in june from Canaveral (likely early june) followed shortly by a launch from vandenburg of cubesats by the OMGWTFBBQ scale, and a June 27th launch of CRS 9 to the ISS. The next two months seem to have a 100% chance.. *puts on Adam Savage hat.* OF ENGINEERING. I bet they'll probably design a proper protective shield to go between the engines of the first stage from now on after a bit more testing.

Well, that's your opinion. You're welcome to it, but I want no part in it and am happily supporting the guy who is busy building the infrastructure and knowledge to make your pessimism a sad joke.

Why, it's almost like it's not even there!

No, SpaceX's figure for a FH launch is $60 million. And that's their current figure, not their reuse figure.

Uh, no, more along the lines of '60 million to drop 4-ish tons on Mars'. Which is stupidly cheap. And that's at the current price-point, not counting the 30-ish million drop in price as they work out reusability.

The Falcon 9 is ALREADY a tenth of the 'industry standard' *Spits* cost for LEO orbit, is designed to and will very shortly begin to be reused, and the side boosters will most likely be reused F9's. Yes, this will be cheaper by a margin I don't think anyone wanted to even dream be possible (except for Musk, but his superpowers are 'money' and 'going to space', so he always believed it was possible)

Lighter payload, I believe. Plus less going easy on the rocket and punching the throttle through to 'Plaid' on the dial.

From Musk: "We may need a bigger rocket park."

"You get a rocket, and YOU get a rocket, AND EVERYONE GETS ROCKETS!"

Why, it's almost like it re-entered

"I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar!"