Comment by saberience

Comment by saberience 19 hours ago

The space shuttle lol?

Are you not considering the fact that the huge external tank and the two SRBs were destroyed every time? Not to mention the insane costs of refurbishing each space shuttle, not the mention the insanely bad safety of the shuttle and the 14 astronauts who died in it!

Space shuttle, while cool, was really, really bad design, bad safety, and totally uneconomical. It was definitely cooler than Soyuz, but Soyuz was cheaper and more safe.

There's a reason the US abandoned space shuttle and had to beg the Russians to use Soyuz to send their astronauts to the space station.

EncomLab 18 hours ago

The Shuttle program only failed to recover 4 SRB's out of 270 launched - and 2 of those were on Challenger.

Why should we care what you think if you can't get something that basic right?

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saberience 15 hours ago

Recovering parts that landed in the literal salty ocean and need massive refurbishment to work again isn't really reusable in the same way that Falcon is though really is it? Trying to compare the two is honestly disingenuous.
Calling Space Shuttle to what SpaceX have done really is like comparing chalk and cheese.
Space shuttle cost (inflation adjusted) about 700M per launch(!!). Compared to Falcon 9 (10-20M). Superheavy and starship will start costing maybe 100M and rapidly decrease to maybe 10-20M also, but with more than double the carrying capacity of shuttle as well as in generally being far more capable.

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- cma 4 hours ago
  
  Falcons upper stage isn't recovered or refurbished at all. And sometimes it launches the whole thing in expendible configuration more like SLS's use of shuttle engines than shuttle's.
  30-40 years after shuttle yes we have improvements, but that doesn't make it first to reuse the rocket.
  
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cma 19 hours ago

The SRBs could land in the ocean with parachutes and be recovered and refurbished. Shuttle wasn't economical as I mentioned, and definitely the space shuttle wasn't safe.

What you claimed was: "They have the first rocket ever made which can take payloads to orbit and then be reused." That was known as the space shuttle.

The ~$40 million tank was expendable so you are right it wasn't full reuse either. Starship jettisons parts too, I believe the hot staging ring? And the Falcon series throws away the whole upper stage.

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saberience 15 hours ago

Space Shuttle isn't a "rocket" like Falcon 9 is though, it couldnt go to space by itself. So saying its the first reusable rocket is really stretching credibility.
Falson 9 is a one piece rocket, as is Superheavy.
The Space Shuttle got to space with the help of other rockets, tank etc.

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- tsimionescu 15 hours ago
  
  And all those other parts were recovered after most flights and re-used after refurbishment on future flights. Since there's no other name than "Space Shuttle" for the whole rocket, it will do. Note that Starhsip is also ambiguous, as it refers both to the entire two stage rocket, but also just stage 2.
  
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