[Spktyr]

That thing is huge - parachutes are not a practical option, no more so than they would be as a safety measure for an entire 747. Also, you can’t do a parachute landing on a Moon or Mars mission if you want the ship back.

[lepton]

That thing is huge - parachutes are not a practical option, no more so than they would be as a safety measure for an entire 747. Also, you can’t do a parachute landing on a Moon or Mars mission if you want the ship back.

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And the test mission is different from the use mission. These test missions address a specific part of the use mission, and any parachutes would be deployed during a completely different part of the re-entry mission.

[Yo-Yo]

That thing is huge - parachutes are not a practical option, no more so than they would be as a safety measure for an entire 747.

You don't have to ride the parachute all the way to the ground in order for it to be an effective means of bringing back a booster safely to Earth.

A parachute would be very practical to bring the vehicle down from its separation altitude to a much lower altitude and slow most of it's vertical velocity without burning fuel. When you near the ground, you start the engines and cut the parachute. That way you don't need to carry all of that residual fuel just to bring the stage back to the ground.

Also, you can’t do a parachute landing on a Moon or Mars mission if you want the ship back.

No, not the Moon, but so far ever single soft landing on Mars (over two dozen) has included aerobraking with a parachute, in much the same manner I outlined above for an Earth soft landing of a booster stage.