How did people send dick pics with these things?

1) The falcon booster does leave the “atmosphere” as NASA defines it - it achieves low orbital altitude but is not in an orbital attitude. You do realize that atmospheric friction is caused by using the atmosphere to slow down from sustained orbital velocity, correct? If the craft is not targeting a significant…

Falcon 9 uses roughly 7 to 11% fuel (depending on barge or mainland landing) on return of its first stage. It’s not carrying a second stage and payload and extra fuel when landing. The extra fuel is also used as a failsafe should an engine fail so slightly less payload at decreased chance of mission failure.

1) These liquid fuel boosters are never leaving earth’s atmosphere - they don’t have heat shielding, and will burn up just like the shuttles orange tank if they decided to leave the atmosphere. They’ll reach upper atmoshpere just like current SRB, meaning that Mar’s thinner atmosphere has no bearing on its performance.

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These liquid fuel boosters are never meant to leave the atmosphere. There’s no heat shielding on them, so there’s no way it’ll survive the drop if the decent is unpowered. What’s worse is that barring the small amount of energy lost to drag, it’ll need as much energy to slow it down as it needed to get upto speed…

Salt water exposure and water pressure made refurbishment expensive.

Parachutes don’t absolutely necessitate a sea landing - the Russians (previously Soviets) have used parachutes for landing (capsules) on land for decades, although the Soyuz capsule does have small solid-fuel motors to slow impact. NASA looked at using a parasail (close to a parachute) for the Gemini capsule in the…

“Open desert, landing area not included with X38 CRV spacecraft. Actual landing may not occur as advertised.”

Re-landing a liquid fueled rocket just uses a bit more fuel, which is relatively cheap. Building the rocket is the most expensive part. Imagine if we built a new jetliner every time one flew across the ocean.

Capsules slowed with chutes still hit the ground at 20 mph or so. The astronauts have to have raisable shock absorber chairs and custom molded seats so their backs don’t get broken. Also, they can’t control where they land, cn’t get out if the capsule lands hatch down, and the capsules are stll hot enough to start…

Saw the 2-stage one but never flew it. Had a blast with those rockets. Those and the Guillows balsa gliders and rubber band planes. Hard to find now, probably banned by parent groups. For me it led to c-motor estes rockets and 0.49 powered planes (Guillows Spitfire, P-51, etc). Come to think of it, the kids these…

Remember the multiple stage ones that basically didn’t work? But the little clear red ones (I had that one too) were a lot of fun.

fuel is much cheaper than all that expensive machinery and materials. MUCH CHEAPER

For sure! But this is apples to oranges. A helicopter has better accuracy than an airplane, and an airplane has better accuracy than a gliding chute. That won't land well on a barge.

The point is a controlled, powered landing. When a soft touch on land is required, retrorockets are always used, mostly in parallel with parachutes. (this is how the dragon will operate, btw.) Because the chutes can only reduce so much momentum for a mass. The shape and size of the mass also has a strong effect on how…

Parachutes also add weight; if you’re looking to land a rocket engine and main tank, plus whatever payload NASA is interested in, it’s more efficient to leave extra fuel in the tank than to add parachutes (assuming you can actually land it safely - which admittedly is a *big* if).

Fuel is much cheaper than disposable (and much less safe) solid propelant boosters and fuel tank. Touching down with parachutes also requires sea landings. Salt water is bad. Also you can’t tell parachutes where to land. Also, it offers a failsafe if parachutes should fail. Also, parachutes only work on earth…

What’s wrong with the space shuttles system of reusable boostersbthat they have to land the rockets under its own power?

Aerodynamics and current rocket design.

RIP VentureStar/X-33. Cancelled too soon.