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Old September 14th 18, 06:59 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default Falcon 9 Block 5 update

Jeff Findley wrote on Fri, 14 Sep 2018
06:20:38 -0400:

In article ,
says...
Yep. And so far ULA has only paid lip service to reuse (their so called
"smart reuse" is dumb since it only recovers the engines of the first
stage. By the time this is perfected, SpaceX might very well be flying
BFR/BFS which will be fully reusable.


ULA is copying the Russians. The Boeing capsule 'crashes' like the
Russian capsules and Vulcan engine recovery is just what the Russians
do.


Please elaborate on "Vulcan engine recovery is just what the Russians
do". I am unaware of the Russians snagging engines mid-air with a large
helicopter, which is what ULA plans to do. Mind you, if anyone could do
this, it would be the Russians. Some of their helicopters are the
biggest in the world.


Russia actually drops them in a swamp to get a nice 'soft' impact. But
they're just recovering the engines.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw