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Posts tagged falcon 9

emu family

emu family published on No Comments on emu family

this is my sneaky way of showing the size differences between some famous rockets.

for those who don’t know, the ‘v-2’ rocket (aka a4) on the far left was 14 metres tall and was the first rocket to ever reach space in 1944. it was built by the nazis to bomb london (but luckily they mostly missed).

the ‘saturn v’ on the right was the rocket that brought people to the moon in 1968-72, and is still the largest rocket ever launched as of now (2021/08) at 110 metres tall. however, spacex’s 120m tall ‘starship’ is going to break that record when it launches (hopefully) later this year.

reusability

reusability published on 1 Comment on reusability

the hybrid jet/rocket spaceplane concept is being developed the british company ‘reaction engines’, a company who’ve been working on their ‘skylon’ spaceplane project for about the last 30 million years (so naturally i expect them to finish aaany day now).

the reusable two-stage rocket concept was pioneered by the american company ‘spacex’, who currently reuse the 1st stage of their ‘falcon 9’ rocket and are planning on reusing both stages on their upcoming ‘starship’ rocket. pretty much every other private space company is going this route. cuz you know, it actually works.

the ‘catch-the-rocket-in-midair’ concept sounds so insane you’d think i just made it up, but it’s actually the plan of the new zealand-based company ‘rocket lab’, who are eventually going to start catching their ‘electron’ rocket 1st stages with a helicopter. can’t wait to watch it.

of course, i could’ve also mentioned the space shuttle, but calling that “reusable” is about as generous as calling a potato chip a vegetable. “partially-somewhat-refurbishable” would be a more honest description.

falcon 9

falcon 9 published on No Comments on falcon 9

rockets have pretty much always been single-use since their invention, which has been the primary reason for space travel being so ludicrously expensive. imagine how much a plane ticket would cost if an airliner could only fit 3 passengers and was destroyed after one flight. nasa dabbled with reusable spacecraft with the space shuttle, but the refurbishment of the shuttle was so expensive it would have been cheaper if they’d kept flying single-use rockets.

when spacex landed a falcon 9 first stage in december 2015, we may have finally entered an age of true reusable spacecraft, where rockets can simply be refuelled and flown again much like an airliner. of course, we’re not quite there yet, but in a few decades space travel may finally be accessible not just to astronauts and ultra-gazillionaires, but to regular folk like you and me.

…well, not really me. you’ll still probably need many thousands of bucks for a ticket, and i forfeited making that kind of money when i started drawing comics. :(