The fact that SpaceX demonstrated, without a doubt, that reuse of a first stage was viable in December 2015, and that we still do not have any clearly reusable first stage from anyone else tells you the whole industry is complacent and juiced up on the fat margins of launching a first stage up, then chucking it in the ocean, and then asking for money for another first stage.
That's true but it also speaks to the fact that Space X is incredible. Not nearly as bureaucratic and innovating like crazy. The new Raptor engine alone is mind boggling in it's simplicity.
China has at least one Falcon 9 clone in testing stages (that one that accidentally launched during static fire a while ago) and many new-space rocket companies have reusable vehcles in pipeline (eq. Rocketlabs Neutron). Even Europe is going to do that - eventually. :P
That is exactly my point. It has been 10 years and aside from some small baby steps, no incumbent has declared clearly and vocally that reusability is the future. They're all in denial. The Russians, the Chinese, Europe.
Maybe at one point really early on the external tank was planned to be reused, but it was expended in every launch of the shuttle with no provisions for re-usability. They even stopped painting it within a few launches.
I'm sorry this was downvoted. It is probably a bit too pithy for HN.
I think you raise a good point even if there are some "technicalities" about it.
Real question: I'm not an aerospace geek. The term "first stage" has probably changed at lot in rocket science in the last 50 years. From the NASA Space Shuttle to SpaceX Falcon 9, has the definition changed? From my elementary school memories, the Space Shuttle used a giant center rocket and two booster rockets that we expendable, but you are definitely right that the Space Shuttle "thing" (no idea how to call it) was used over and over again, (somewhat) safely. Something that I don't know: Where Apollo programme capsules reusued? I assume no.
The space shuttle had three main components - the orbiter (white and black space plane with the crew and cargo), the external tank (rust brown on all but the first few flights), and a pair of solid rocket boosters. The orbiter had three engines and received its propellant (oxygen and hydrogen) from the external tank. At launch, the solid rocket boosters (SRB) and the main engines were all running so technically they can all be considered part of a “first stage”. The SRBs would expend their propellant in around two minutes and separate. They dropped into the ocean, slowed via parachute, and were recovered by boat and refurbished. The three space shuttle main engines would continue to burn for several more minutes until the external tank was depleted. The ET would be discarded and burn up on reentry. Then the orbiter would use two small rockets with internally stored hypergolic propellants to boost up to its intended orbit.
Apollo/Saturn had a much more traditional staging design where the first stage booster would run then drop off, then the second stage booster would run, then drop off, etc. There exist other rockets like the Atlas which had what they called a “stage and a half” design where the center stage burned for a long time and there was an outer “ring” stage that dropped off after a shorter time while the center stage kept going.
After going to the moon, the only part of the entire Apollo/Saturn rocket that came back was the command module capsule with the astronauts and moon rocks. These were completely torched and affected by salt water and were not designed to be reused. Reentry from the moon is significantly faster than reentry from low earth orbit.
The shuttle orbiters were refurbished and reused. It was a very difficult, expensive, and time consuming process to get an orbiter ready for another flight.
All of that is to say that the picture is blurry for the shuttle regarding first stage reusability. Yes the SRBs and orbiters were reused and were lit at launch. The ET was in use at launch but discarded. In my opinion it’s sort of not that interesting to argue what is and isn’t first stage on the shuttle because the elements just don’t map cleanly.
The design of the system with the SRBs, tank, and orbiters being adjacent to each other is considered by many to have been too dangerous in retrospect. This design was a factor in both shuttle disasters - the SRB shooting fire at the ET causing it to explode on Challenger and cracked foam falling away from the ET during launch and hitting the leading edge of the orbiter wing for Columbia. If they were stacked vertically rather than adjacent, those specific failure modes would not have been possible.
All this is irrelevant. The shuttle required so much inspection, refurbishment, and repair that it was little more than the world's largest and most expensive piece of political pork for a giant PR stunt. Contractors were selected so that every state had a contractor making shuttle parts in order to bribe congressional reps into supporting the massive boondoggle.
Each launch cost almost half a billion dollars in 2010 money. The Falcon 9 is reportedly $60-65M per launch.
SLS was just more of the same, welfare for all the states with contractors who grew fat and happy off the shuttle contracts. There was no technical argument whatsoever for reusing such ancient technologies.
Each RS25 engine cost $35M to refurbish for use in the SLS. For the cost of building TEN falcon 9 engines, NASA refurbished one RS25 engine.
And yes, of course it was absurdly dangerous to rely on not just one but two solid rocket motors of which there is no control whatsoever except for slight thrust vectoring...
I understand the costs were higher. Albeit, it could be called a political stunt, did it not provide a lot of employment? So, while inefficient was it not a good thing (in at least the short-term, the long-term could be debated).
My understanding of the federal government of the US is that it is mainly a subsidizer of their national military-industrial complex. Something I would call: military-industrial socialism.
With that said, it is just more of the same in a different era. 1930s and the Empire State Building: to re-invigorate the economy, Eisenhower and the interstate highway system: to provide a stronger national defense, etc
Even more stark, the raptor 3 supposedly costs <$500k to build, so you can get around 70 (almost two full starship stacks worth) for the price of refurbishing one of those engines.
> From my elementary school memories, the Space Shuttle used a giant center rocket and two booster rockets that we expendable
That's incorrect. The orange "giant center rocket" had no engines, it was an external tank which held the propellant burned by the orbiter's main engines. The SSMEs were on the "Shuttle thing" and were reused.
Let's be realistic though, it's nothing to do with the 'Silicon Valley mindset'. It's just the classical route to dethroning a poor-performing incumbant - hire good talent, throw lots of money at reasearch and stay focused on the smallest targets where you can demonstrate the biggest progress.
Despite his projected persona, Musk would love nothing more than to get to the position of being the bloated encumbant supplier with guaranteed government contracts regardless of results.
>Despite his projected persona, Musk would love nothing more than to get to the position of being the bloated encumbant supplier with guaranteed government contracts regardless of results.
I'm impressed you can keep saying this nonsense despite how SpaceX operates being pretty well documented.
We do have a large number of wealthy people who are all about that and I find it mind boggling. What kind of idiot decides that the most important thing to them after they already have over a billion dollars is to get more? Why not try to do new risky things that are unlocked by that money? How're they really just all about a "number go up" game?
Fortunately it seems that we also have quite a few wealthy people that actually want to use their money to fund and do new and innovative stuff.
Musk has done some impressive things for himself. Along the way he’s helped out society. Now it seems as though he’s done with that and cares more about changing it match his image.
