I just don’t see the point when the shuttle showed for years that a glide is a pretty reliable return strategy.
Each launch of the Space Shuttle was $800 million to a billion dollars per flight. With SpaceX its much cheaper.
“I just don’t see the point when the shuttle showed for years that a glide is a pretty reliable return strategy.”
That’s what I find so exciting about the direction the space program is taking. Opening up to new ideas from SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, Orbital Sciences, Virgin and others will increase competition for the best cheapest forms of spaceflight.
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Yeah, it’s a trade; been done over and over for decades.
The shuttle wings were there for cross range capability. Never used.
For just booster recovery, it’s obviously not needed and wing structure weight, drag, and complexity is even more of a problem.
Khrunichev proposed it with the yet-to-fly Baikal system.
With the addition of the hypersonic paddles to Falcon 9 SpaceX is adding just enough aerodynamic controllability to cure some problems that wings would have solved.
So they are on the right track I think from a system efficiency viewpoint; they’ll get there eventually - be able to reliably recover the F9 1st stage.
But the business questions will remain.
And the small detail of what will Range Safety and the population of Cocoa Beach think when they see the missile that just left town headed back towards them.....
Spacex's design is radically different because Musk's goals are radically different. The Space Shuttle was designed to go into orbit. Musk's vehicles are each stepping stones to go to Mars.
The Space Shuttle, at launch, consisted of the orbiter, a main fuel tank, and two solid rocket motors. The main fuel tank was only used once. The solid rocket motors were reused, but at such a high cost to refurbish them it did not save money over just making disposable solid rocket motors. Only the shuttle orbiter was really reused, and it required expensive maintenance as well.
What Spacex wants to do it greatly increase the reusability. This test soon is to land the first stage back safely in a condition that it can be reused.
SpaceX's crew module, the Dragon, is also going to be reusable, but it is not a glider like the shuttle. The reason it is different is because it is a design that can land on Mars, where a shuttle type glider must have a runway, and a thicker atmosphere.