Why doesn't SpaceX build a spacecraft that can land on earth

>>8501906

Its cheaper

>>8501906
can't get to mars on a shitty shuttle senpai

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Only the shuttle orbiter was reusable. The three rockets it needed to get into space were not. SpaceX Falcon 9 is also partially reusable, but they did it backwards. The main rocket is reusable but the second stage isn't.

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>>8501906

Serious answer: Boeing already did that with the X-37 while Lockheed owns all the patents because they own Rockwell, the people who built the Orbiter.

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>>8501906

Soviet russia did it before it was cool and did both concepts.

>>8501967
>Making your second stage reusable before your first
Literally useless, who greenlit this?

>>8501967
The space shuttle would have been way better with a reusable fuel tank + reusable boosters rather than a reusable orbiter
Though the whole design of the space shuttle was a fucking disaster

>>8501906
A large part of the problem is that launch systems need to be as light as possible, which means that the margins are trimmed down to almost nothing. Every ounce of additional material in the structure is an ounce less payload.

The end result is that a rocket that's been used once is like a car with 100,000 miles on the clock. Going over every inch with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that there's no damage or wear which will cause it to fail won't necessarily be cheaper than throwing the whole thing in the trash and building a new one.

>>8502054
The solid boosters were the most effectively-reusable part of it.

The most blatant wastefulness was the drop tank, which had to be extremely large and very high quality due to weight restrictions. It alone cost more than a Proton launch, thus guaranteeing that the shuttle could not save money over an expendable vehicle.

The most severe problem with the shuttle was that it was treated as a practical project rather than an experiment or even development project. This is why it was oversized for a first try and why they weren't prepared to admit it wasn't practical and go back to the drawing board to make another one.

If you compare the shuttle and SpaceX's reusable program, you can see that NASA planned only for success while SpaceX planned for repeated failure. NASA built four shuttles before the first had flown as a one-time batch with no plan for more, and banked on each one working for many flights. SpaceX started with a quite ordinary expendable vehicle and evolved it toward reusability with a permanent factory steadily producing new units, before taking the lessons learned and applying them to a clean-sheet reusable design, which will also be produced continuously and therefore fixable if the initial units disappoint.

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>>8501981
They never used that though.

They never even recovered the regular Energia boosters on either of the two launches it did.

>>8501981
The trouble with winged flyback boosters is the high cost and dramatic reduction in performance. Look at how much of that thing isn't rocket. You have to build an airplane that can carry an empty rocket, then the rocket has to carry that in addition to its load, then you have to add high-supersonic atmospheric entry. If the rocket blows up, you additionally lose a special custom heavy airliner.

A design like this will lose two thirds of its performance, meaning they have to triple the size, and will be much more complex than the expendable, increasing the unit cost tenfold. Still worth it once mature, if you're launching very frequently, but hard to justify funding through the awkward development stage.

The beauty of SpaceX's version of a flyback booster was that they did it largely in software. There's nothing on it that doesn't belong on an expendable booster except some small fins and the landing legs.

A design like this will lose one third of its performance, meaning they have to increase its size 50%, and it's not significantly more complex, perhaps increasing the cost even less than 50% due to advantage of scale.

>>8501971
X-37 isn't a rocket, it's a payload.

>>8501971
>Lockheed owns all the patents
Patents only last 20 years. Nothing from before 1996 is patented in the USA.

>>8502849

and notice how the shuttle was flying until 2011

>>8502985
Are you suggesting that the patent term only starts counting down when a technology stops being used?

Because that's not how it works at all. It's 20 years from the filing date, or (previously) 17 years from the issue date. As soon as you apply for your idea to be patented, the clock starts ticking down.

Or are you suggesting that a shuttle couldn't be built without inventions used in the final upgrades toward the end of its life? Because that's contradicted by all the time before that.

>>8501906
Because "Vector" are lying to you and you don't even know it.

>>8503053
I'm sure there are a lot of insane design decisions in the shuttle that you would have zero reason to duplicate

That's like half the trouble for SpaceX, they keep doing stuff in new ways that are cheaper/better, then it takes time & money to develop and sometimes causes a rocket to blow up.

>>8504395
The basic body shape of the shuttle would be reasonable to imitate for a reusable upper stage, with either a cheap drop tank or integrated tank. Even the heat shield isn't terrible if the method of attaching the tiles can be improved. Most of the tiles actually stayed on once installed through the whole life of the shuttle orbiter they were on. They weren't supposed to need replacing, each one that fell off was a failure.

>>8504395
>That's like half the trouble for SpaceX, they keep doing stuff in new ways that are cheaper/better, then it takes time & money to develop and sometimes causes a rocket to blow up.
More like cutting edges everywhere causes success rates to drop.

>>8505377
the basic body of the shuttle was insane...
It was what required a seperate external fuel tank
Wings are pointless, it was the airforce who put that requirement in, so they could do their never used polar orbits

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SpaceX's ITS spacecraft will be single stage to orbit capable with a reduced payload.

the ITS booster will be single stage to orbit with several hundred tons

Am I being trolled here? The first stage which is probably the highest cost item is already reusable. The second stage isn't but it's not economical to make it reusable.

>>8505388
What edges were cut?

>>8505473
What made the shuttle program so damn expensive was the fact that there were so many contracted agencies working on it. The Shuttle Orbiter was made by Rockwell Intn'/Boeing, the SRBs were made by Orbital ATK, the External Fuel Tank was made by Lockheed Martin, the fuel made by AP&C inc, etc, etc.... And each company had employees to pay, manufacturing costs, and profits to turn- basically needed to financially maintain their businesses.

Via vertical integration, all those middle men are cut out, vastly reducing the costs of operation and manufactuing. By SpaceX making all components in-house, price per lbm in orbit is literally the lowest it's ever been.

>>8501906
They did
The 1st stage returns, to be reused
After now proving the technology, they intend to begin attempting to return the second stage for re-use
The Dragon craft is currently the only payload craft that returns to Earth the others burn up
The Dragon will soon be approved to carry humans and except for the Russian Soyuz, will be the only craft able to carry humans to and from the ISS

>>8505428
>Wings are pointless
Wings increase cross-range distance and downmass capacity, as well as reducing peak heating. Furthermore, compared to a lifting body, the design is much more flexible. If something about the requirements or weight distribution changes, you can change the wings much more easily than the design of the whole shape.

Finally, they bring the landing within the capabilities of a human pilot and provide graceful landing failure modes. A propulsive landing doesn't fail gracefully, you're using rockets at the last moment to prevent a crash.

>>8505774
>graceful landing failure modes. A propulsive landing doesn't fail gracefully
yeah sure they were very concerned about safety, THEY DIDNT EVEN INCLUDE A CREW ESCAPE SYSTEM


THEY DESIGNED THE SYSTEM ASUMING IT WAS A PERFECT 1000% FINISHED SECURITY OF THE FOREVER NEVER EVER NEVER NEVER GONNA HAVE AN ACCIDENT OF ANY KIND OF KINDS


AND IT WAS ACUALLY THE WORST WORSEST WOSRT KILLER OF ASTROUNATS FOREVER, like FOREVER THE FOREVER OF EVERS "if you even attempt to argue with me youll be declaredc a stupid idiot im objectively right in this" FOREVER


woah, talk about bad diesgin

>>8505781
The shuttle actually had a crew escape system for use in atmosphere after reentry. To escape from the shuttle you do down to the mid deck and you open the door. You extend a pole out the door, and then you slide down the pole, under the wing* and away from the orbiter which is currently flying in a straight and level path........

*(The purpose of the poles is to guide you under the wing instead of into the wing)

>>8505377
The tiles didn't need replacing cause they fell off. They were too damn fragile and keep getting damaged.

>>8505774
>Wings increase cross-range distance and downmass capacity
Two things not used
>as well as reducing peak heating
means more heat shielding needed, which was a huge portion of the expense

You didn't need a human pilot even in the 80's

>>8505793
And for all those times when that wasn't viable, such as during launch above the safe bail out velocity?

Not to mention the whole bail out idea as being terribly slow when disasters tend to happen very fucking quickly, which is why a proper escape system works so quickly.

They did have ejection seats for the pilots for I believe the first few launches? Then they removed them, not that they worked right anyway since they just ejected them right into the SRB exhaust.

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>>8501906
But they did anon.