Reusable Stages

[Bhodi Li]

So with the SpaceX space craft the first stage is reusable, after detaching it returns to the launch pad and can be used over and over again. This is a breakthrough for spacecraft technology but what I don't get is why they couldn't do that with older craft. For instance, the Saturn V rockets which would get people to the moon, the stages would drop off and fall into the ocean. Why couldn't they then be recovered and reused?

 

[Classical Motion]

Because we were afraid, and in a hurry. Like now, with AI. In a big fearful hurry.

Mistakes and abuse will happen, just like the wild un-regulated internet has. Look at the perverted thiefdoms it has created.

Large criminal and state sponsored data centers attack the internet every hour. It will probably be the first use of AI, if it hasn’t already.

And the legitimate sites sell your habits. Only for your convenience of course.

 

[rustythebailiff]

So with the SpaceX space craft the first stage is reusable, after detaching it returns to the launch pad and can be used over and over again. This is a breakthrough for spacecraft technology but what I don't get is why they couldn't do that with older craft. For instance, the Saturn V rockets which would get people to the moon, the stages would drop off and fall into the ocean. Why couldn't they then be recovered and reused?

Early on there were a lot of proposals to do this. The X-20 program had a reusable booster proposed for it. But let's remember, it took SpaceX a decade to perfect this, with 21st century technology, fast computers, and a much smaller booster. We just didn't have the tech available at the time. Now, if the testing on the X-20 and other similar projects gone forward, we may have had it by the 80's. But the cost would have been enormous.

 

[billslugg]

We did not have today's superalloys, supercomputers, 3D printing, GPS, etc etc. We could barely get something into orbit. I remember when that happened the first time, in 1958. We barely made it to the Moon in 1969. Plus, we didn't need to reuse anything. We had infinite money, 4% of US GDP. Plus we were only going to the Moon once. After we demonstrated the superiority of Capitalism over Communism there was no more reason to go there.

 

[Astraeus]

It’s not that they couldn’t recover them—it’s just that few engineers were lining up to reuse hardware that had been incinerated and then drop-tested by the Pacific.