𧡠REPLYING TO @Erdayastronaut (Everyday Astronaut):
ββ "Chinese space startup, Nayuta Space released renders of wanting to belly flop the booster and land it horizontally. Let me break down why I don't think that's the best idea:
1. The booster is already designed to be structurally adequate vertically on ascent, so having the descent phase have landing loads horizontally adds a lot of extra mass and considerations.
2. The animation shows the booster flying more horizontally which is not something dihedral actuating flaps would be good at. They're good for maintaining orientation belly-ish first when they are perpendicular to wind flow, not parallel. In fact, I'll bet grid fins and using the fuselage as a lifting surface might have better cross range capabilities.
3. Although vertical landings look difficult, they're actually quite controllable, with physics similar to balancing a broomstick. Landing horizontally along a huge moment arm and several engines actually leaves little room for error.
4. Obviously landing horizontally requires additional engines that have no other use in flight, this is extra dry mass that takes away from the performance of the vehicle. Plus your main engines pull propellant through the bottom of your tanks, so if there'd have to be additional tanks or at least extra considerations to have tanks that can be used in the horizontal regime.
5. The booster doesn't experience that great of peak temperature during reentry because it's peak velocity during reentry is much lower, which is why you see rockets like Starship and Electron able to survive pencil diving back through the atmosphere without a reentry burn.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Best of luck Nayuta space, prove me wrong!"
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
π¬ ELON'S REPLY:
Making a fully reusable orbital rocket of any design is one of the hardest engineering problems of all time.
Much, much harder than going to the Moon, which is why it still hasnβt been solved.
I am cautiously optimistic that Starship will achieve full reusability next year.
The other critical technology, albeit much easier, is orbital refilling. If fortune favors us, that will also be achieved next year.
Then consciousness and life as we know it can extend to the planets and hence to the stars.
Source:
X (formerly Twitter)
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on X
@Erdayastronaut Making a fully reusable orbital rocket of any design is one of the hardest engineering problems of all time.
Much, much harder th...
Source: 
Source: 
