Talk:SpaceX reusable launch system development program: Difference between revisions

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== BRDCommunity on recent deletionreassessment ==

Editor [[User:Winged Brick|Winged Brick]] deleted a section, and left a rationale in the edit comment. I reverted in order to discuss the matter on the Talk page, per [[WP:BRD]]. My view: long-term stable section in a [[WP:GA|good article]] should be discussed on the Talk page, and consensus built, before such a large removal. Beyond that, I'll let Winged Brick articulate the rational for the deletion here, and other editors can weigh in on the merits. Cheers. [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 20:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

:Ah, I figured it would be obvious. the section, "Popular Culture" implies that content is both popular and part of the culture. Two passing references to Buck Rogers do not qualify in any way for inclusion in pop culture. Even if they did, their inclusion in an article on a test program for a reusable launch system seem very difficult to connect with Buck Rogers. --[[User:Winged Brick|Winged Brick]] ([[User talk:Winged Brick|talk]]) 02:51, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

::I must agree with WB on this...section is (in my view) nothing more than trivia. <span style="white-space:nowrap; text-shadow:gray 5px 3px 1px;">— [[User:Huntster|Huntster]] <small>([[User talk:Huntster|t]] [[Special:Emailuser/Huntster|@]] [[Special:Contributions/Huntster|c]])</small></span> 05:09, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

:::I'll put in my own thought on this now. I don't believe policy is such that this popular culture reference would be inappropriate given the two sources, or have to be removed. Having said that, my interest was mainly to get multiple-editor discussion and consensus on it, and I'll try to help that here. So let me address both aspects.

:::Wikipedia is written, and read, largely by younger people of a particular cultural and experiential background, and ''most'' of ''those'' people are little familiar with the multi-decade cultural norm in the early part of the 20th century that perceived these (mostly) future rockets to be of the type that, overwhelmingly, would land vertically. Moreover, ''Buck Rogers'', although a fictional character, was a widely-known cultural reference in the newspaper age over several decades of that period. I have recently asked several 70 to 90 year old American's "what does the name ''"Buck Rogers"'' mean? Who was he?". This is anecdotal, so not determinative, but they have "known" who he was, from the comic strips that were in newspapers for decades prior to the 1960s. There are thousands of "popular culture" type references in Wikipedia today that have meaning to other fairly narrow demographic groups, and some have much less support in sources than these we are discussing. So my take is that if Wikipedia is written to be the "encyclopedia of human knowledge", and have a relatively-long-term use, and not be mere news articles, we editors must keep in mind that we write for a potential readership that is much wider than the cultural ''milieu'' that we tend to inhabit.

:::Having said all that, I don't think it is [[Wikipedia:There is no deadline|critical ''right now'']] to have the broader cultural reference in this article. The two sources given back the statement, and refer to SpaceX and their reusable rocket projects, but they are each a bit oblique. If the material is removed for now, until better sources are located in the future, it won't harm the article (much, although it won't have the cultural reference for a group of our less-frequent readers). But I will support the consensus, whichever way it falls out. [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 12:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

So, are we ready to delete the section again? Two for deletion; one abstain? I do understand that the term "Buck Rogers" means something in relation to pop culture in the early 20th century, but the application to this article is just silly. Two passing mentions in articles do not warrant inclusion here. In fact, inclusion here amounts to more popular culture notoriety (undeserved) than the two citations. I'm going to delete it tomorrow. --[[User:Winged Brick|Winged Brick]] ([[User talk:Winged Brick|talk]]) 19:42, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

== Discussing a couple of recent edits ==

Hey [[User:Appable|Appable]], you recently attempted to clean up and reorganize some of the info about the series of test flights. The clean-up/reorg was needed, but I'm not sure about a few details of what you did. Could probably do a [[WP:BRD]] to discuss it, but I think some of it is useful, so let's just discuss.

#I think the table of contents is getting rather too many levels, and levels on too low a detail, with your movement of the faux headers to headers. I don't feel strongly about this if you feel the opposite, but I just note that not every subsection is terribly beneficial to readers to be listed in the TOC, and I have observed in the past that many other articles I've run use faux headers for the very lowest level, seemingly with the intent to keep them from showing up in the TOC. I've never even looked up wiki-guidelines on the matter; just leaving an observation here on that item. But do step back and take a look at the current TOC after your edits; I'm thinking it's a bit ugly, and too much detail in the TOC.

#The main mission—transporting cargo to some planned [[orbital spaceflight|orbital]] trajectory—is the only mission that is associated with the ''"mission name"'' (e.g., CRS-n, or AsiaSat-n, etc.), SpaceX has always been rather clear that any testing they might do on an expended (trash, if not otherwise used) booster stage—i.e. a suborbital test flight—is in no way a part of the main mission. This is quite different from almost all other previous spaceflights where, say, some national provider like the NASA or ESA or the US DOD owns every part of the launch and mission once the launch vehicle leaves the ground. SpaceX is just selling a space transport service, and NASA etc. just has no say in what SpaceX does with their booster after a successful stage sep. Moreover, SpaceX is funding all of the incremental costs of any test flights they do.

::Therefore, '''I don't believe it is appropriate to conflate the test flights SpaceX may or may not do on some launches with the primary mission name.''' They are, rather, merely tests that happen on a particular Falcon 9 v1.1 launch. I think this is especially true at the section header level. We just don't have source support that these tests are explicitly associated with the main mission of whomever SpaceX is selling each payload to. They are merely coincidental tests that SpaceX does following some uses of their expendable booster when they think they can advance their own development objectives for the reusable technology. This item seems a bit more important to me, and I really believe we give the reader the wrong impression with the mission names as primary descriptors for each controlled-descent test flight.

::I'm not sure of the solution. Now that there have been so many of these controlled-descent test flights, about a half-dozen in the past 18 months, maybe adding a table summarizing the main info might be in order, and if we did that, maybe get rid of the header distinction between "ocean over water tests" and "floating platform attempted landings"; we could perhaps just show which type it is in a column of the table. Or maybe even (eventually, if not now) moving the details of flight tests (clearly notable since covered by so much media) to a separate article, since this article is a ''[[WP:GA|Wikipedia good article]]''. This is what was done with the "[[SpaceShipTwo]]" vs. "[[VMS Eve]]" article. The details of flight tests are associated with a particular (notable) vehicle, but left out of the main article. In a similar way, perhaps we might want to consider leaving the detail out of the main technology development article (getting rather long in any case; its nearly 100,000 bytes) and put the test details in a separate (and non-"good article"). Or something else?

Those were my two main thoughts. What do you, or others reading this page, think about this? [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 20:12, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

:Thanks for writing this up. After looking at the table of contents, it does seem to be a bit crowded at this point. As you suggested below, a table summarizing the information would probably be the best solution. There could be a summary that SpaceX has done both "ocean" and "floating platform" landing tests on this article, with a main article link that extensively covers both landing tests extensively. Besides, the headers are getting really messy on this article even with the faux-headers, so it would be best to do a split. Given the many flights planned and the recent announcement of the F9 v1.2 (I have no idea what they'll call it, but the upgraded performance Falcon) it's likely that the test flight section will only grow larger. It might be best to move immediately to a new page as the test flights ramp up, as delaying would only add to the work required to split the article.

:If it was split, would it be worth including Grasshopper and F9v1.1 Dev-1 flights (about 13 flights in total) alongside the Falcon 9 post-mission tests to form a [[SpaceX prototype vehicle flight testing]] page? Or instead just a [[Falcon 9 booster post-mission, controlled-descent tests]] page?

:For thoughts on the primary mission naming scheme on the section headers: SpaceX publishes mission names and names such as "Falcon 9 Flight 13". After looking at the article, it might give the wrong impression to refer to them by mission names. But at the same time, the issue I had with the older scheme (based on chronological order of test flights) was that it wasn't a common way to refer to the vehicles. SpaceX seems to publish both a mission name (Orbcomm OG2 Mission 1) and a vehicle name (Falcon 9 Flight 10). While there's no evidence that the mission is related to the test, it's common sense that the vehicle is related to the test. Because of that, I'd support modification of the headers to reflect the vehicle names.

:Thanks for having this discussion and proposing methods of resolving article clutter.[[User:Appable|Appable]] ([[User talk:Appable|talk]]) 20:55, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

:::{{u|Appable}}, all that sounds good to me. As mentioned, I really didn't like the mission name conflation; but agree that the [[Falcon 9 Flight 16]] (for example) descriptor works. I'm also fine with splitting off the test flights now, as the detail is over-weighting this article, but still the info is notable.

:::Don't really care much whether it is the one scope (broader) or the other (narrower, just the high-altitude, high-velocity controlled-descent flights). However, perhaps for symmetry, both names might start with "Falcon 9"; e.g., [[Falcon 9 prototype vehicle flight testing]] rather than [[SpaceX prototype vehicle flight testing]]. But your alternative is also fine with me, too: [[Falcon 9 booster post-mission, controlled-descent tests]]. As further food for thought, we generally have very little news coverage of the [[Grasshopper]] and [[F9R Dev]] vehicle flights that have occurred in Texas; and I would think we won't get much when the New Mexico flights with [[F9R Dev2]] get started, either. So pretty much all the info we have is already covered in the (relatively sparse) tables in the [[Grasshopper]] and [[F9R Dev]] articles. We have much more publically-released info on the booster controlled-descent tests that happen after ''some'' orbital missions.

:::I'll step back and let you re-make the changes to get away from the ''mission-name'' conflation issue that occured with the recent edits. You might want to do that first, here in this article, before doing any split. Let me know if you want more comment from me. [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 01:55, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

:::::I've moved all mission names to vehicle names. Looking at it with vehicle names, it seems like a split is very much needed to avoid overcrowding this article. Does anyone have an opinion on whether a split should be done, and what the scope of the split article should be? [[User:Appable|Appable]] ([[User talk:Appable|talk]]) 03:43, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

::::::I'd certainly support a split of the detailed summaries of each (obviously notable) test flights into a separate article. Thanks for making the changes to eliminate the impression that these privately-funded test flights were a part of the original "mission" flights, as opposed to merely happening subsequent to their lofting since that is what makes the booster available for testing on a descent and landing test. [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 22:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

:::::::Hey {{U|appable}}, here's one more idea for an article name for the split article: [[Falcon 9 ocean booster landing tests]]. I set up a [[WP:REDIRECT|redirect]] with that name a long time ago, and I [http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/Falcon%209%20ocean%20booster%20landing%20tests looked today and saw that name has already been getting a few tens of hits per day], with several hundred hits around the time of launches that have these tests on the agenda by SpaceX. Maybe that name would work better than the (also descriptive, but very long) [[Falcon 9 booster post-mission, controlled-descent tests]]. I'm fine with either one though [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 11:27, 19 April 2015 (UTC).

{{WP:Good article reassessment/SpaceX reusable launch system development program/1}}

== Article was split ==

For the record: Because this article was getting too large, and per the discussion in the Talk page section immediately above this one ("Discussing a couple of recent edits"), the article was [[WP:SPLIT|split]] on 2015-04-23T23:30:12‎ by [[User:Appable]], removing "34,456 Bytes", with the following edit comment by Appable: (Splitting article, this article was getting massive. See talk page of this article for details, additionally see the main article Falcon 9 ocean booster landing tests, which includes all of the removed content.)

== Orphaned references in [[:SpaceX reusable launch system development program]] ==

Thanks to Appable for doing the work! [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 03:42, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I check pages listed in [[:Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting]] to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for [[User:AnomieBOT/docs/OrphanReferenceFixer|orphaned references]] in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of [[:SpaceX reusable launch system development program]]'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for ''this'' article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

::Thanks for the summary in the talk page. If you'd like to read more on the split, there's a discussion on it right above. Thanks [[User:N2e|N2e]] and all the contributors for your work on this article and the comprehensive coverage of each landing test! Content there was great.

<b>Reference named "trati20181224":</b><ul>

::Incidentally, the lead section on the new main article [[Falcon 9 ocean booster landing tests]] sounds like a section header, and I personally don't think it shows [[WP:N|notability]] as well as it should. I'll try to work on it over the next few days, but please add any content or streamline content so that it feels less obviously "split". [[User:Appable|Appable]] ([[User talk:Appable|talk]]) 03:48, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

<li>From [[BFR (rocket)]]: {{cite news |last=Ralph |first=Eric |url=https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-starship-prototype-three-raptors-mirror-finish/ |title=SpaceX CEO Elon Musk: Starship prototype to have 3 Raptors and "mirror finish" |work=Teslarati |date=24 December 2018 |accessdate=24 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181224133103/https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-starship-prototype-three-raptors-mirror-finish/ |archive-date=24 December 2018 |url-status=live }}</li>

<li>From [[SpaceX Starship]]:

{{cite news |last=Ralph|first=Eric |url=https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-starship-prototype-three-raptors-mirror-finish/ |title=SpaceX CEO Elon Musk: Starship prototype to have 3 Raptors and "mirror finish" |work=[[Teslarati]] |date=24 December 2018 |accessdate=24 December 2018 }}</li>

<li>From [[SpaceX]]:

{{cite news |last=Ralph|first=Eric |url=https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-starship-prototype-three-raptors-mirror-finish/ |title=SpaceX CEO Elon Musk: Starship prototype to have 3 Raptors and "mirror finish" |work=Teslarati |date=24 December 2018 |accessdate=24 December 2018 }}</li>

</ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. [[User:AnomieBOT|AnomieBOT]][[User talk:AnomieBOT|<span style="color:#880">⚡</span>]] 05:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

== Sources on the 7th controlled-descent test ==

== Another list of the many rocket technologies needed for reuse ==

Looks like SpaceX is discussing publically some parts of the 7th controlled-descent test on Falcon 9 Flight 17, which landed, (maybe a landing leg broke off; unclear), booster tipped over, and the tank broke open and a [[deflagration]] (kaboom) ensued. See the video SpaceX released on 15 April and is now in the article.

From CNBC space reporter Michael Sheetz: [https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1251155738421899273 Here] is another fairly-comprehensive list of the many rocket technologies needed for reuse. These technologies need to be developed by each rocket company (as only SpaceX has already gone up that learning curve with their engineers and operational staff) and also need to be operated on every flight that has a reusable landing.

Other sources could be useful for improving the article. I'll start adding the sources I find here:

*[http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/space/2015/04/15/spacex-ground-attempt-reusable-landing-sea/25827625/ Defense News interview with Shotwell], 15 April. [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 00:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

*[http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/fine-tuning-falcon-9-landing-throttle-valve-response/ Fine-tuning Falcon 9 landing focuses on throttle valve response], 19 April. <== and another one. [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 21:54, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

The list is from another US rocket company, [[United Launch Alliance|ULA]], but seems to capture a lot of ideas, and might be useful for improving this article and the list of many technologies necessary for reusable boosters (and, later, reusable 2nd stages). BTW, ULA here argues that in order to be cost-effective to do this, their "estimate remains around 10 flights as a fleet average to achieve a consistent breakeven point ... and that no one has come anywhere close." (SpaceX has only ever done up to 5 launches on the same booster, to date.) [https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1251155738421899273 Source], Michael Sheetz, CNBC space journalist, 17 April 2020. —— [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 17:22, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

== Disagreement between Intro and History ==

== Space Shuttle ==

The first paragraph of the Introduction states that "the project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site in minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad" - this is at odds with the last paragraph of the History section which states that "by late 2014, SpaceX suspended or abandoned the plan to recover and reuse the Falcon 9 second stage". <small><span class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:JHarvey418|JHarvey418]] ([[User talk:JHarvey418|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/JHarvey418|contribs]]) 18:19, 14 August 2015 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

Strange page, as the Space Shuttle is mentioned only once, despite being the benchmak of all the spacecraft that want to achieve reusablility. (post left by IP editor: 181.126.211.193)

:Good observation. We should probably clean up the text. But I think the contradiction dissapears when one recalls that this SpaceX technology development program is not specific to just the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The company has decided ''not'' to pursue Falcon 9 second-stage reuse; they absolutely have a long-term goal of second-stage reuse also as a part of this tech dev program. It would appear, based on company statements to date, that the second-stage reuse will get additional development effort when the [[MCT launch vehicle]] development get's underway with more than the skeleton crew of current design resources. Cheers. [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 19:20, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

:Not sure I've ever seen a source that supports your assertion: Space Shuttle "being the benchmark of all the spacecraft that want to achieve reusablility." But do feel free to find that source or those sources; after all [[WP:ANYONECANEDIT]].

== Relevance of New Shepard launch ==

:It did achieve a (very expensive; >$1B per flight) reusability of the upper stage and human capsule, but it expended the main orbital flight structure and propellant tanks. The Solid Rocket Boosters were recovered following parachute descent into the water, but were essentially just recovering the steel cases, with the entirety of the SRBs needed to be rebuilt from the multiple segments. In short, the Space Shuttle and it's rebuilt SRBs and new main rocket structure cost much more for each flight than an equivalent [[expendable launch vehicle]] would have cost, even at the high costs of US government cost-plus contracting launch costs, which the GAO had said the average exceeded US$200 million per orbital launch, and perhaps 300-400 million per launch for the larger [[Delta IV]] LVs that would have been required for the heaviest payloads.

Apologies in advance as I'm a new editor, but I'm not sure the [[New Shepard]] launch, currently mentioned under History, is relevant to this article. Musk himself tweeted that the recovery of a booster from a suborbital flight is a much different goal than the recovery of the Falcon 9 orbital stages and it doesn't seem to affect SpaceX's program. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to put New Shepard under a "See Also" heading? [[User:Gnugnug|Gnugnug]] ([[User talk:Gnugnug|talk]]) 09:56, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

: Yes, I completely agree. At this point in time, the Blue Origin results are more relevant to the other suborbital tourism players like Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace. --[[User:IanOsgood|IanOsgood]] ([[User talk:IanOsgood|talk]]) 22:05, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

: I concur. While interesting to many, the Blue Origin test program is both for a very different purpose than the SpaceX orbital booster as well as unrelated to SpaceX' own program, as is perhaps obvious by a clean up edit I made and edit comment I left recently. It fits in Wikipedia. Just not ''this'' article. [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 00:16, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

:: Thanks for confirming. I've made the change. [[User:Gnugnug|Gnugnug]] ([[User talk:Gnugnug|talk]]) 11:06, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

:That is rather hugely unlike an entirely intact first stage liquid propellant booster that is now recovered routinely by SpaceX, and then the company does future flights for < c.US$50 million dollars per future orbital flight. Musk is on record saying he would have failed if Falcon 9 booster reuse ended up costing more than equivalent payloads on expendable rockets would have cost. Cheers. [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 20:45, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

== What happens to Falcon 9 Flight 20's booster now? ==

After its landing, I'd imagine that Falcon 9 Flight 20's booster will now be torn down by SpaceX into its component parts for analysis, but that's just my guess. Do we have any authoritative/[[WP:RS]] information about what SpaceX's plans are for this? -- [[User:The Anome|The Anome]] ([[User talk:The Anome|talk]]) 12:26, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

== A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion ==

== Maintenance + unmanned ==

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

* [[commons:File:SpaceX Starship SN8 launch as viewed from South Padre Island.jpg|SpaceX Starship SN8 launch as viewed from South Padre Island.jpg]]<!-- COMMONSBOT: discussion | 2022-06-06T05:21:46.151030 | SpaceX Starship SN8 launch as viewed from South Padre Island.jpg -->

Participate in the deletion discussion at the [[commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:SpaceX Starship SN8 launch as viewed from South Padre Island.jpg|nomination page]]. —[[User:Community Tech bot|Community Tech bot]] ([[User talk:Community Tech bot|talk]]) 05:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

== Cleanup ==

High maintenance costs ruined the economics of the reusable Space Shuttle. But that was presumably at least partly due to the Shuttle having to be extra safe to carry people, so that Falcon 9 may perhaps avoid similar problems if its payloads stay unmanned. Are there no reliable sources discussing these matters, or if there are, shouldn't they appear in the article? (The Space Shuttle's problems meant that I assumed Falcon 9 was just hype until I worked out the above arguments, but if those arguments are correct I shouldn't have had to try to work them out for myself, and neither should our other readers).[[User:Tlhslobus|Tlhslobus]] ([[User talk:Tlhslobus|talk]]) 13:27, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I think an extensive cleanup of thes page is overdue. Too much now outdated or extensively detailed clutter as piled up, including statements like "SpaceX is expected to significantly reduce the cost of access to space" which sound humourous nowadays. Some stremlining and reduction to the core information is necessary, to make it understandable for the common layperson to visit it. [[Special:Contributions/47.69.68.181|47.69.68.181]] ([[User talk:47.69.68.181|talk]]) 11:27, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

: As I understand it, many parts of the Space Shuttle had to be stripped down and rebuilt with every flight. I believe SpaceX's aim is to be able to just refuel and relaunch, in the same way as an aircraft can be refueled and relaunched. Presumably they intend to use telemetry and non-destructive inspection techniques to avoid the need for a full maintenance inspection every time. SpaceX certainly intend to make the Falcon man-rated. -- [[User:The Anome|The Anome]] ([[User talk:The Anome|talk]]) 13:40, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

:Agreed.

::Thanks. But the article currently has no mention at all of any of that in the Economic Issues and Technical Feasibility sections, which is where sceptical-but-open-to-persuasion readers like me are going to head, and not much of it elsewhere either, in the sense that it's perhaps implicit in Elon Musk's stated wishes, but an owner's wish list is not a very informative discussion of an issue. Indeed apart from wishful talk about hoping to colonize Mars (which we've been hearing for 50 years, despite the discovery of serious problems with solar flares, and cosmic rays, and the lack of any serious '[[Artificial gravity]]' research programme on any of the various space stations), the article gives the impression that the serious plans are currently only for reusable rocket stages 1 and 2, which for a manned rocket is the equivalent of re-using the rockets but throwing away the manned bits, at least leaving the impression that any manned flight will be much less reusable than the Space Shuttle. [[User:Tlhslobus|Tlhslobus]] ([[User talk:Tlhslobus|talk]]) 14:19, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

:The current state of the article does not match its "Good Article" Status. [[User:Redacted II|Redacted II]] ([[User talk:Redacted II|talk]]) 19:16, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

== A good secondary source article on the SpaceX reusable technology 10 years on ==

:::If you're talking about Earth-bound missions, I believe that SpaceX intends to make all three components reusable: the first stage and second stage boosters, and the Dragon capsule, all landing vertically on their own rocket thrust. In the case of the Dragon, the landing rockets are also planned to serve as the attitude thrusters and launch escape mechanism. I can't find a reference for this at the moment, but they released a video last year (with a backing track by Muse, IIRC) showing an animation of how the whole process is intended to work. We really need to have this covered in more detail in the article. Mars I don't know about. -- [[User:The Anome|The Anome]] ([[User talk:The Anome|talk]]) 14:36, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Long-time space journalist Eric Berger/Ars Technica published a good secondary source summary of the results of the SpaceX reusable technology, in the 10th year after SpaceX first brought a booster back to the launch area in December 2015. [https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/08/with-recent-falcon-9-milestones-spacex-vindicates-its-dumb-approach-to-reuse/ With recent Falcon 9 milestones, SpaceX vindicates its “dumb” approach to reuse], Eric Berger, [[Ars Technica]], 28 August 2025. Would be useful to improve the article. — [[User:N2e|N2e]] ([[User talk:N2e|talk]]) 20:35, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

::::Thanks for the great info, {{U|The Anome}}. I wonder can that video be used as an acceptable RS, if it can be found? Also, do you by any chance know whether they say anything anywhere about returning to the Moon (or is it all just about Mars, with its far greater and possibly insuperable problems for the human body)?