Favorite rocket/ spacecraft?

[cubinator]

Saturn V, Shuttle, Starship...

The Shuttle inspired me as a kid - I saw that and knew that's what I want to do. However, I always think we deserved Saturn 8.

[.50calBMG]

Currently operational: Falcon heavy, because "holy flying f___!"

Retired: Delta II & III, something about the boosters just made them both look awesome.

Also Titan IV, most elegant looking monster rocket ever made.

Planned: SS+SH, because absolutely groundbreaking.

 

[SpaceFace545]

Space Shuttle, nothing more badass than that

Titan IV cause it’s plain cool

Atlas V, something about it just floats my boat

[Maria Sirona]

The R-7 rocket series are definitely my soft spot... And the Soyuz spacecraft is just beautiful, especially the first version- the 7K-OK which flew on, for example Soyuz 6... I know the 7K-OK was a very dysfunctional craft that killed Vladimir Komarov, but it is just... Ah, so beautiful.

And i also like the Starship, too.

 

[CollectingSP]

Love- Delta IV/III/II, Athena I & II, Vulcan and Minotaur

Like- Atlas V/III/II/I, Antares, New Glenn, New Shepard, electron, Astra 1/2/3, Titan 1-4 & 23g, Minotaur-C, and Firefly alpha

Meh- Falcon 1/9

Hate: starship/BFR, Saturn 1B.

[RealKerbal3x]

11 hours ago, CollectingSP said:

Hate: starship/BFR

Okay, I understand disliking Elon Musk. I also understand disliking SpaceX as a whole.

But hate is a strong word, and I don't get outright hating Starship/Superheavy. Should it work on any level (even if it never reaches the Moon or Mars or anything), it's a transformative vehicle - and from what we've seen so far, it looks like they can make it work. So why the hate?

[CollectingSP]

2 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Okay, I understand disliking Elon Musk. I also understand disliking SpaceX as a whole.

But hate is a strong word, and I don't get outright hating Starship/Superheavy. Should it work on any level (even if it never reaches the Moon or Mars or anything), it's a transformative vehicle - and from what we've seen so far, it looks like they can make it work. So why the hate?

Knew someone would ask, lol.
Not a fan of most super-heavy lifters.

that includes Starship.

I know it’s iconic, but personally I don’t really like Saturn v either.

Also Personally, I don’t really support Spacex that much because I feel that they are praised as a completely commercial company that receives no funding from the feds, but that’s not the case.

[YNM]

Favourite rocket : H-IIA/B. Those strutted stubby SRBs, the larger core for the B variant which then shrinks for the upper stage only to sport a large fairing, LH2/LOX... idk, it's interesting in many ways despite arguably not the most complicated. H3 is losing the strutted look...

Favourite spacecraft, manned : Shuttle. We'll never send a 737 up into space again. (we're probably going to send grain silos though, but grain silos ain't an aircraft.)

Favourite spacecraft, unmanned : Anything small, anything that actually returns something new physically home. Soft spot for Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, with the tiny tumbling rovers and free-flying remote cameras and whatnot, and it sends us back a sample capsule from a celestial body we've never been on (and we'd probably never be there). Should mention OSIRIS-REx here too, though sadly it doesn't carry any add-ons (probably makes for a less risky mission too), godspeed to the team carrying samples back.

 

In the run-up list :

Delta II : 9 SRBs for maximum kerbalness. Delta III would've been here but it's too unreliable...

Vega : Truly bat out of hell

Ariane IV : Most kerbal-looking. Probably grain silo would replace this... maybe if they stuck a side booster or something XD

Titan IV : Just for the massive SRBs. Never seen a launch of it live though (and wasn't as interested in space when it flew)

Edited June 18, 2021 by YNM

[tater]

Watching another flawless F9 booster landing cements it in my mind as by far my favorite operational launch vehicle.

 

2 hours ago, CollectingSP said:

Also Personally, I don’t really support Spacex that much because I feel that they are praised as a completely commercial company that receives no funding from the feds, but that’s not the case.

Pretty much no one does this, but yeah, an easy straw man to knock over.

Anyone paying attention knows that F9 exists because of the ~$360M they were given to develop it for COTS.

Anyone paying attention also knows that SpaceX launches MOST government payloads right now, so clearly they receive funding as payment for those launches. Various USAF/USSF launches, NASA payloads, and NASA crew and cargo missions to ISS.

ULA is also a commercial company that receives payment for services.

[SpaceFace545]

5 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Okay, I understand disliking Elon Musk. I also understand disliking SpaceX as a whole.

But hate is a strong word, and I don't get outright hating Starship/Superheavy. Should it work on any level (even if it never reaches the Moon or Mars or anything), it's a transformative vehicle - and from what we've seen so far, it looks like they can make it work. So why the hate?

cause some people don't like certain things

2 minutes ago, tater said:

Anyone paying attention knows that F9 exists because of the ~$360M they were given to develop it for COTS.

thats a bit of a generalization isn't it?

[RealKerbal3x]

Just now, SpaceFace545 said:

cause some people don't like certain things

I know that, I was just interested to hear why exactly.

[SpaceFace545]

Just now, RealKerbal3x said:

I know that, I was just interested to hear why exactly.

I don't really like starship cause it looks goofy, ITS looked like a thumb but BFR (the one with delta wings) was sick looking.

[tater]

39 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

thats a bit of a generalization isn't it?

In what way? Anyone who doesn't know this has not been paying attention. Is it true that some people who have no idea what they are talking about might say, "SpaceX did everything themselves with no government funding!" Sure, just as I'm sure there are some who say they never did anything at all because the Earth is flat. Both people get filed in the same bin for me. There are others who think they somehow got far more than they did, and they deserve the same treatment.

And every single time this comes up in interviews with either Shotwell or Musk, they always point out that they'd not exist without the $360M from NASA. It was unambiguously a good investment by NASA.

The only place where the claim about "not getting government money" is more correct would be Starship. Minus the HLS contract, SpaceX would still be doing exactly what they are doing. The so-called "old space" companies (now pretty much merged into ~3, Boeing, LockMart, and NG) have proposed truly innovative vehicles literally since the 60s. Those were not built—because the government would have had to pick them, then write the checks first. As publicly held companies with a responsibility to shareholders, they could not burn billions so they could secure a tiny launch market, it's just not worth it. Look at rockets that "could have been" from the late 60s and 70s... astounding concepts. It really does require someone with deep pockets to just do it. Heck, look at concepts like the LockMart human Mars lander that came out as part of the whole "base camp" thing. Very cool (I really like that thing). The trouble is unless it wins a government contract it will NEVER get built.

[fragtzack]

On 11/1/2020 at 10:07 AM, wumpus said:

Saturn V.  Born in 1969, and I'm pretty sure I saw (and remembered) Skylab going up.  Of course I didn't know the difference between that and the Saturn 1B that brought astronauts to Skylab and finally Apollo-Soyuz, but I watched them every chance I could get (which was what, 4-5 Saturn 1B launches in the 1970s?).

For unbuilt rockets, I remain loyal to Orion.  The shear scale of the thing, combined with the ability to use fusion power with only 1960s tech (20 years away, pah!  We've got all the fusion we need already!) makes it read like over the top sci-fi (but it really could have been made, and probably not much more than an Apollo budget.  Or maybe the Nimitz's budget, but project power over the entire solar system...

+1 for Saturn V

[DDE]

6 hours ago, CollectingSP said:

Also Personally, I don’t really support Spacex that much because I feel that they are praised as a completely commercial company that receives no funding from the feds, but that’s not the case.

So you dislike them for other people's ignorance. That's... rather unfair.

[CollectingSP]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

So you dislike them for other people's ignorance. That's... rather unfair.

No, there are other reasons as well. I’m not gonna fight with people about it. My mind is made up. You are entitled to your opinion, and so am I.

I don’t really see why it’s a big deal lol. I’ve always been a ULA fan, and that’s just how I am

Edited June 17, 2021 by CollectingSP

[Maria Sirona]

And now wasn't the purpose of this thread to tell which spacecraft we like and not about arguing about what is the best rocket!?

LET'S GET BACK TO THE SUBJECT OF THE THREAD!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[YNM]

3 hours ago, Maria Sirona said:

which spacecraft we like

Rockets / spacecraft. My protest is that we barely touch unmanned spacecraft here. They might be only a machine, a robot - but they deserve the love too.

Edited June 18, 2021 by YNM

[Beccab]

18 minutes ago, YNM said:

My protest is that we barely touch unmanned spacecraft here.

Definitely Voyager I and II for me, both because of the astonoshing images they took and because they were able to be completed in time for the narrow window that allowed them to make the grand tour without delays, unlike all the other probes that are sometimes delayed for decades (looking at you JWST)

Edited June 18, 2021 by Beccab

[YNM]

14 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Voyager I and II

Would've labelled it a favourite as we haven't go back to Uranus and Neptune, but it's kinda sad since soon they'll go away from our contact... would also lump New Horizons in as well, it won't fade on us so quickly but that's the ultimate fate.

Still they are a bit lacking in terms of their interaction with us. With sample returns you get stuff back and after that the probe is free to do other things. The sample stays with us indefinitely, the probe can retire knowing it done a job well.

Edited June 18, 2021 by YNM

[DDE]

53 minutes ago, YNM said:

My protest is that we barely touch unmanned spacecraft here.

The Ye-6M chassis (Luna 9, Mars 3 etc) is near and dear to my heart.

Edited June 18, 2021 by DDE

[Maria Sirona]

14 minutes ago, DDE said:

The Ye-6M chassis (Luna 9, Mars 3 etc) is near and dear to my heart.

 

Me too! The entire Mars 2/3 spacecraft is also a quite beautiful thing.

[SBKerman]

Some of my favourite rockets based mostly on their aesthetics. In alphabetical order because I couldn't rank them if I tried.

• Antares - I really like the minimalistic and uniform shape. Function before flashiness. There's a certain charm to that.
• Atlas - Specifically the original ICBM version before they started putting every upper stage known to man on them (although Atlas-Centaur was decent). Somehow, it managed to appear both futuristic and industrially old school at the same time. The stage-and-a-half setup added to the unique look. Also, stainless steel before it was cool.
• Proton - To me it's the quintessential Soviet design. Functional, brutish, but still strangely attractive. There's something about the contrast between the sleek, no-nonsense upper stages and the more bulging first stage with its six engines and clamped on fuel tanks.
• Saturn IB - A lumbering gigant. Big and strong, yet not so large that you lose perspective of its size like with its big brother. The cluster of tanks gives the rocket an ad hoc feeling and adds to its character.
• Titan IV - I could lump the many Titan III variants in here as well. These rockets look powerful like few others do. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I think it has to do with the huge SRBs squeezing the core vehicle between them.

When it comes to spacecraft, I would say the old Soyuz (7K-OK and OKS) for manned ones. Dangerous as they were, I do like the sort of steampunky look of them. They also remind me of Klingon bird of preys (or the other way around I guess). For unmanned, I'm going with the Venera probes. Again, they have that rough Soviet industrial design, looking almost like factory equipment. I also like those missions, failing lens caps notwithstanding.

Edited June 18, 2021 by SBKerman

[wumpus]

For probes, Voyagers need more love (but don't merge with one).  We simply had no information of the outer planets until they started passing them, one by one.  A few years after launch, Jupiter went from being a fuzzy spec to being a meteorologically active planet, complete with a ring and 50 more moons than previously thought.  About a year later, Saturn got a similar treatment.  And then Uranus and Neptune.

Only New Horizons did anything similar, taking a former planet from 4 blury pixels from a Hubble camera to detailed maps of (one side of) the surface.

[Maria Sirona]

9 hours ago, wumpus said:

A few years after launch, Jupiter went from being a fuzzy spec to being a meteorologically active planet, complete with a ring and 50 more moons

Hey, don't forget Pioneer 10 and 11! They were the first! (And i also kinda like their look)