204
SpaceX launches starship Mega-Rocket and catches its booster in midair on first try.
(www.smithsonianmag.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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It's not just saving a little money. If this works, it will drop costs by another order of magnitude. Falcon 9 already dropped a zero, Starship will likely drop it by another zero even without this, and consistently being able to do this catch would mean another zero. That's getting to $20/kg to LEO, vs $150/kg without it on Starship.
That kind of cost will enable things that were completely infeasible before.
I didn't say "a little" money. It may be important or critical for the business but from a technical perspective, demonstrating how it can safely bring loads up and down decides whether the whole concept is actually feasible. That's when people will start to get excited.