sojourner

A "realistic space war" would look different based on the technology levels involved. So the question cannot be answered until you decide on what technologies are available.

A station at eml2 as a gateway to the moon and the rest of the solar system for manned missions.

The fairings are aluminum and carbon fiber. They cost an estimated 2 to 6 million each (for the whole fairing, not just per half). definitely worth looking into reuse and shouldn't be too difficult. After all they reach terminal velocity pretty quick due to their large surface area to mass ratio. Most of the damage is from hitting the water. Also, from what I've read the fairings are also a bottleneck in production. They're so large that they only have limited equipment to produce them, so reuse would speed things along.

Most of it is soot from the engine burns, not re-entry heat. Remember, it does a boost back burn as well as a re-entry burn to slow the stage and prevent it from re-entering too fast. The landing burn is the last of (a possible) 4 times the engines are fired during a mission. The stage never attains enough speed on the way down for re-entry heating to char it.

Not sure where you guys are getting this from. The barge is in the Atlantic and will be in Port Canaveral late today/early tomorrow.

unhosted.

At this stage (no pun intended) I believe the main goal in SpaceX's landing attempts is to retrieve intact first stages. Based on that I am guessing that they will still try to get approval for another RTLS. Remember that the last RTLS only got approved about 2 days before launch.

They're not.

I don't think NASA has totally ruled out RTLS landings though. I believe they left some room in the contract to eventually allow it. If they approve.

Some of you guys are talking about the Dragon V2 and some of you are talking about Falcon 9 first stage. You really should clarify for the OP.

It's the great weakness of the entire space industry - schedule slip.

And? Nothing there indicates that SpaceX is actually working on making F9 first stage methane based. You're making suppositions. Second stage may get methane but that remains to be seen.

In fredinno's fertile imagination. SpaceX has only hinted at a possible new methane second stage for F9. There's been no indication that they will build a methane F9 first stage.

Don't hold your breathe on that. Most indications are that it has been delayed until at least late Feb.

I don't think there is another backup set of chutes. 4 is it.

There arer no 1.1's left to retrofit. All existing Falcon 9's are 1.2's.

Early February. SES-9.

Oh, right. to be precise, they were both caused by cold temperatures, but hey, pretty sure you got the gist of it the first time around. And how is it "picking on Challenger" to note that there were some small similarities in the situations? Heck, I think it actually presses home the tragedy of it. Here we are 30 years later still able to make mistakes that highlight the difficulty of what is being attempted. It reminds us that people can lose their lives if we let our attentions slip or come to think of these things as "routine". Better to be reminded of that than some clever line from a movie.

Not anymore off topic than the post that preceded it. But hey, if you can't see the correlation to an earlier reusable rocket that was destroyed due to an unforeseen icing complication, I'm not sure what to tell you.

I can't help but think of another rocket that had icing problems during a January launch, about 30 years ago.

SES-9 is next with CRS-8 to follow.

Well, we all await something constructive from you regarding the topic other than "there's no reason to go to mars".

Yes, this is all very true, but beyond the scope of the question in the OP. There are other threads asking the question of where it makes more sense to build a colony.

All of the reasons you give are why it's not feasible now or anytime soon. Which pretty much everyone in the thread has already acknowledged. I'm talking about in the long run. Eventually, if a Mars colony reaches a mature stage, the shipping infrastructure will reduce cost somewhat. Cheaper than shipping from Florida to California? No. But some goods will find a market even at high incurred shipping costs if the desire is there.

If this is so easy, why do people praise one wine over another on earth? Some things cannot be reproduced. Having said all that. You would need a very mature Mars colony to begin with before local luxury goods would start to see any demand back on earth. Look how long it took for similar things to develop in the Americas. Do you think there was any demand in europe for Kentucky Bourbon ten years after Columbus? 100 years? No, it took a good half a century. Mars has nothing to offer in return in the near future beyond being a life boat for humanity. It will take hundreds of years for it to develop into anything resembling even a small earth bound nation in terms of economy.