Delta IV - a very expensive pleasure
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- Опубликовано: 5 янв 2021
- The Delta IV is a family of heavy launch vehicles created by Boeing in the early 2000s and operated by the United Launch Alliance (ULA). The largest member of this family, the Delta IV Heavy, is the flagship of the ULA model line and, for 2020, the second launch vehicle in the world in terms of maximum payload. It is one of the few carriers using a cryogenic fuel pair in both stages: liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The Delta IV is used primarily in the interests of US government agencies. With launch costs ranging from $150 to $400 million, these rockets can be considered some of the most expensive in the world in 2020.
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Delta IV... Such a badass rocket that it sets itself on fire just for the hell of it before every launch.
6, 5 ..., DO A BURNOUT!, 4, 3, 2, 1. Liftoff!
the nature of entrenched business is why the Falcon took ULA by surprise, When you own an industry for so long you just never think a new guy will pose a threat. And the history of aerospace is littered with the wreckage of startups as well which makes it even harder to convince your shareholders to let you spend money to counter this newcomer.
Ohh they all see it, especially the scientists and engineers. You can't cheat physics and the costs that comes with it. Reusable rockets have been on the back burner of many space launch organisation. Literally the Space Shuttle and the Buran were to take advantage of that. It is just no investors or the business side of this industry are willing to take the risk and go for a SpaceX-like rocket because they all thought it will simply be too risky and cost too much.
@@gelinrefira The other parts was demand; ULA didn't see the demand necessary to re-coupt he costs of R&D for a reusable rocket. There's only a certain number of Gov/military launches per year, and that drove their view of what to expect in terms of revenue.
SpaceX drove revenue up both by providing a cheaper option, but also generating its own demand with Starlink.
A few years ago the prevailing thought was, "why would you want to trust your payload to a used rocket." Now it is, "why would you trust your payload to an un-tested rocket."
There is no longer A sensible reason to use any ULA rocket which costs 3 times more than it's competitor and moves less payload.
@@AKlover The only reason it can still have high prices is that the US military has a lot more funding than NASA, so it can use huge piles of cash on vehicles made by ULA.
@@Rauruatreides The excuse that is pedaled in the case of Delta Heavy is "Fairing Size" ....... The reality is 85% of Cong/Sen own Boeing/LM stock and the stock jumps with every contract.
@@AKlover Fair size I guess is also a factor.
AKlover how about the second stage performance? Nasa always choose that ULA for interplanetary mission
I am a union pipe fitter and welder and was luck enough to be a part of the delta4 program in 2000-2001.This was the most interesting project I have had the pleasure to work on.
Your reports are "As good as it gets". Your combination of deep knowledge and subtle humor is without peer.
"coated with gold and fueled with bourbon and still be cheaper" < lol.
That made me pause too comment too! I really like Sky’s humor.
“The fireworks where gorgeous” got me laughing my ass off
I'll miss it setting itself on fire.
My grandfather worked on the delta IV program. Thanks for another great lecture sky
What was his name? I work for ULA and started on the Delta IV, I might have worked with him?
@@BeKindToBirds I'll ask if anyone knew him, any idea when he retired?
My favourite rocket (besides the R7). In heavy configuration it was always, to me, looked like a classic space ship. Now the Falcon heavy and Starship are taking the retro chic to new levels.
I had the pleasure to watch this vehicle launch. Such a beautiful vessel
Today's it's last full day. such an incredible legacy.
A happy send away for the Retiring Giant.
This is definitely one of my most favourite rockets. Sure, it is expeniseve, but due to its hydrogen fueled upper stage, it's the only rocket currently caüable of reaching high energy orbits, like the case with Parker solar Probe. Since those missions don't launch that often, it's no surprise that this rocket is expensive. But still, it's the only rocket capable enough, so it is simply required.
Falcon heavy can do this if you throw away the center booster. Its not impressive nor justified.
And its still cheaper to throw away a Falcon Heavy than a Delta IV.
@@haydentravis3348 falcon heavy doesn’t have the payload space to have a good market for its capability’s
@@coffeespy1133 If I recall, it wasn't a matter of space, but vertical integration. Falcon 9 loads their payloads horizontally, prior to being transported to the launch site and integrated there, where as Delta IV loads the payload during rocket construction in a vertical integration building next to the launch site.
@@haydentravis3348 it’s also payload space, falcon heavy misses out on stuff DIVH doesn’t because of payload space
@@coffeespy1133 www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=falcon+9+vs+delta+iv+heavy+payload+capacity
I think you're full of shit, Falcon Heavy carries almost three times the payload.
Delta IV Heavy only has 9 cubic feet more space in the fairing.
21:30 There's another reason why SLS won't use (and Constellation wouldn't have used) the RS-68. Tests showed that the ablative nozzle does poorly in a clustered engine environment. This issue doesn't come up on the D4 Heavy because the engines are much farther apart than they would be on SLS.
Vulcan will use the D4's tank diameter, so the manufacturing equipment won't completely go to waste.
Good use of the T-1000 from T2 in the video, Sky....... well done!
Great video! I would love to see more like this on other launch vehicles.
Your in-depth look at the components of the rocket was masterfully done.
The way you fit the time line and lineage of the delta also stood out.
A plus work.
4:21 hey that looks familiar
I love how some images of the Delta 4 is from KSP. Great work!
It's always a blast (see what I did there 😉) to see a Delta IV Heavy... when it doesn't abort in the last second! 😒😑
Also a video of the R7 would be amazing
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I like your videos because they show great expertise and a fine, subtle sense of humor that is non-hurtful.
i wish you would do a video on the GSLV 3 from isro. The Indians have come a long way. And with you being the best in depth youtuber who likes aero space, it would make one hell of a video.
great video Sky! you really reached for the stars with this one!
"Delta four" sounds like someone from London saying "Delta Thor"
Great coverage of the Delta IV.
Delta 4 heavy still greenest rocket ever made and launch 🚀
There are a one or two more Delta 4 Heavy launches left. And there was one a few months ago. They just have lots of hot-fire aborts which cause it delay months lol
Congratulations to all involved & thanks for sharing the information contained
Thank you.
I love these rocket videos! I'm not sure if there as popular as your plane ones, but I really hope you keep going with them, there's a lack of good content about rockets in this format xx
A most interesting documentary. Thumbs up.
"Coated with gold and filled with Bourbon"
hahahahahahaha!
Delta is out and Vulcan is in! This was great infotainment, and a wonderful sendoff to the Delta rockets. Nice work!
Only 4 more Delta 4 units are in the assembly pipeline, so all launched by 1st Quarter 2022?
Any reliable signs of a test launch of either Vulcan or New Glenn before that?
Pretty sure no one is putting a XX $billion NRO satellite on anything with less than 2 successful consecutive outcomes! I see a gap year as very likely!
@@KevinSmith-ys3mh I think the last 4 Delta Heavy's are all NRO launches. Vulcan Centaur is _supposed_ to launch a lunar lander in Q4 but we'll see how that goes. From what I've seen both Vulcan and New Glenn have been waiting for the BE-4 engines to finalize.
@@CausticLemons7 Yea, definitely NRO has dibs on Delta unless there is a sudden hurtling asteroid impact event! 😆
No one else will pay it's bills, because each launch is essentially 3 Atlas V's going away. A reusable Falcon Heavy totally makes more sense, except for a deep space mission where every gram counts. That's where disposable rockets still shine, until they work out a system for orbital refueling and interplanetary launch missions.
Long term I'm quite optimistic about the potential of spaceflight, which is overdue for actual business ventures with payback potential, not just plant the flag vanity shows! There's gold, platinum, iron-nickel, silica, water, and solar energy out in them thar hills/ craters/ asteroids and getting it back here may keep us from trashing the planet we're need to live on!
Short term.........not so much. None of these programs ever meet schedule or budget, always add 2 to 10 years at best. What's going on with Covid-19 and the economic effects, NASA & DC administration changes , worldwide budgets blown to hell!
Best case of 4 to 10 year delays likely , assuming no major screw ups like SLS blowing up on the pad and taking 1/3 of the Cape Canaveral facility with it (thinking Soviet era N-1 moon rocket here!)
Fingers crossed for the BE-4 engine project going well, or Vulcan & New Glenn have to crawl to Elon & SpaceX for Raptors, those are at least flying now. Or maybe Aerojet could restart their last effort vs BE-4, but a longshot. Methane gas fueled engines do seem to hit a sweet spot between kerosene and hydrogen, with most of the best features of each.
I am glad that I did get a chance to visit a Delta IV medium and an Atlas V at the pads, and cannot wait to see the vulcan in action.
Love your channel. Keep it up.
Excellent!
I loooove this!
Awesome 💛💫
Thanks...
"a very expensive pleasure"
you mean divorce? XD
Great video.
Love this ship :)
Good video! However, I believe that CCAFS no longer exists, as it was replaced by Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
More rockets! And planes)
@ 01:04 on these are part of the 60 Thor missiles operated by the RAF from 4 UK air bases from 1958. Hence the RAF roundels.
FOKKER 70/100 plsss
We never get to see them, no one has ever made a video about that beautiful bird
I think there is one important thing you missed
the D4 heavy is faaar better at transplanetary missions than the Falcon 9 Heavy, due to the fuel
Vulcan sure looks promising, although there's not much we can speculate if the engines aren't even ready yet. I remember ULA received a test engine a couple of months ago but so far all the test footage we've seen has come from Blue Origin.
First!
Thanks for another great video!
Thanks for watching)
Good video)
It's going to see supper heavy being ended.
4:22 THOSE ARE KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM RECRATIONS
thanks sky make one of the MiG-29
The story of the big orange beast is a sad and strange story about what could have been and what reality does to dreams. With Delta II retired, Delta IV is the last we have of this long running family of launch vehicles. With Vulcan on the horizon, I think its safe to say the last legacy rocket families, Atlas and Delta, don't have much longer. Vulcan has some interesting prospects. Cheaper than Delta, more capable than Atlas. Mission extention kit on the upper stage allows it to be used for weeks instead of hours. And most excitingly, plans for reusability. But most likely like the Titan series, Delta will always have a special place in my heart (I honestly like it more than Vulcan)
Nice(;
Always loved his engine and the CBCs - it’s a shame it’ll soon be retired. It’s odd that the Falcon Heavy is facing a similar fate after very few launches.
I guess with miniaturization and better power sources, it’s unusual to require such large rockets for satellites these days. Either very large recon sats or transfer orbits for things like probes, rovers, etc... even then perseverance didn’t require such a large rocket to get to Mars (and that’s the size of a car.)
Oh well, time to wait for SLS and super heavy! Ironically both of which will be hydrolox.
Coated with gold and fuelled with bourbon 😁🤣! So funny yet so true! Good job once again, another cool video
Please make a video about Angara
17:30 what? Falcon Heavy fully expendable only does 60t to LEO and Delta IV Heavy is at most 29t
delta 4 heavy vs falcon heavy. which one do you like
Is that even a debate lol
Mr Skyships, I would like very much to be in contact with you, I'm from brazil and i would like very much to re-make your videos in Portuguese and create a Sub-channel with your content translated. Brazil has a ginormous market for aviation but not everyone has access to english dubbed content. Please send me a message if you're interested in a partnership.
ps. I would like to also keep your content fully under your copyrights.
Isso seria muito trabalho. Uma boa quantidade de canais por aí aceita traduções por email, o que é bem mais simples do que gerir dois canais e duas comunidades. Obviamente era melhor quando qualquer um podia fazer os captions em qualquer vídeo mas a opção foi removida em 2020.
What is more frightening is the lack of launch vehicles lately and soon more to get the axe. All we will have launch is a Falcon 9 400 times in a row and a Vulcan every few years. Of course I'm speaking from the Cape and a jobs/ career perspective. But none-the-less, its an objective failure on all fronts to grow the space industry.
I think you have to step back and get a wider view of this issue. SpaceX is certainly the current front runner & game changer, but the challengers are not far behind. Blue Origin is right behind them in deploying self landing boosters (probably), Electron has just tested a parachute recovering 1st stage, and most organizations that want to survive in the commercial launch market must follow or get priced out. Consider this- if Delta4 had initially come out as reusable x20, even at its current insane price$$$ to build it would have ruled the heavyweight launch market (not that a RS-68 engine would survive this, but RS-25 evolved maybe?) Every one knows it's their path forward, but hardly easy to achieve. Result : a step change in technologies that has obsoleted all previous designs.......and a pause for development time with the mad scramble for cash$$$ to make it thru to the other side.
Look at the Wikipedia "list of orbital launchers ", and you will see most are retired, retiring, or in development. The future of spaceflight is likely bright, but not clear by any means. 🤔🙂
@@KevinSmith-ys3mh Unfortunately companies like Blue Origin and Electron have no skin in the game. Blue Origin has yet to launch a damn thing and Electron doe not have a facility nor the rocket to lift payloads more than a few tons, let alone providing JOBS which is the whole reasons for space. Stop using reusability as the excuse here. If this is going to be only about money, then no country should ever have a space program. Space is about results, nothing less and nothing more.
WOW skyships Eng does rockets too!?!?!?
He is doing rockets for a long time
Do the falcon 9 and heavy
They should have used two Zenith boosters for the Delta IV heavy and increased the volume of the tanks of the central Delta IV stage. This would have led to an enormous increase of the payload.
NASA painted their rockets orange to honour the country's president.
I suppose any remaing ones will now be painted grey then.
Just wait for Delta V.
Heh, heh.
But how much Delta V will the Delta V have?
@@captainstroon1555 I'm sure at least +1 more, but knowing ULA'S history, nothing revolutionary! 🙄
not sure if he realized but at 13:47 he used a Kerbal Space Program replica of the delta iv lol
What I don't understand is why the radial flow gas turbine has not much news about it, it is bigger that axial flow gas turbines, but i can't find any news about vehicles that use this type of gas turbine its all so secret, i would love to know what the performance of any vehicles that used this type of engine is. Or why no vehicles use it???
ULA: Select RS-68 to save cost
*SLS use RS25 because it is cheaper*
I was wondering about that myself; why would they choose the RS-25 over the RS-68 for the SLS? So I researched it. It turns out that the 2 main issues are man-rating and clustering. The RS-68 would've needed extensive redesign to be sufficiently safe for manned spaceflight and the design of the nozzle (specifically cooling) made it subject to failure in close clustering.
In fact, NASA had originally intended to use the RS-68 but decided to move to the RS-25 instead because of this. They figured that while they were more expensive, they had already paid for them and might as well use them for something instead of leaving them sitting around.
HTHs,
-Slashy
@@GoSlash27 Good to know Slashy
@@GoSlash27 yeah thats mostly the thing, the RS-25 being man rated, the RS-68 not
they will modify the RS-25 to get rid of some of the expensive parts though
@@Markus-zb5zd Yeah... In *theory*. In practice, though? My guess is they won't. Official reason being that the redesign to lower unit cost would be prohibitively expensive for such a small batch. Unofficially, it's all about the pork and keeping constituents happy in those key congressional districts, so they'll just buy the expensive engines and use them once. I say this because if they weren't motivated to shower these districts with cash, the SLS wouldn't exist in the first place.
@@GoSlash27 the RS-25A are already in production I think
I like listening to rocket documentaries narrated by Strong Bad.
Wouldn’t it be cool to add a dozen of SRBs to Delta IV Heavy? That’d be super heavy.
Also very Super expensive, they're not free and will require redesigning each stage for higher launch forces (and additional weight). The RS-68 engines didn't play well with SRBs when tested on the SLS, so they went with more expensive RS-25s. Probably easier to supercool the oxygen and extend the tanks for more propellant. Maybe possible to fit 4 GEM-60s between the boosters, but is it worth it?
ULA seems to think the next generation Vulcan is a better idea. 🤔
It's nice but I'm glad to see it becoming obsolete.
Why?
@@EstorilEm maybe because of its price? ULA rockets so far are stupidly expensive and don't win any medals of the department of reusability or innovation. Its time for launch prices to go lower and the Delta IV is not helping it.
It never was obsolete
From what I understand is that the advancements with rocket propellant and engines have been stagnant for decades.
Honestly current rocket propellants are as good as they get there is only so much chemical energy you can extract. As for engines there are some promising developments like SABRE for fuel savings and VASIMR for space propulsion.
@@tsaranen I think they have much better hidden for real WAR...
Not really. I mean... propellants haven't changed much (other than xenon ion propulsion and the switch to metholox) but the technology and capabilities of the engines have been advancing so rapidly that there are new breakthroughs being announced every couple months.
I have hated hydrogen lower stages for years! They are the most expensive..
@Wayne Flanigan RS-68 is the most powerful HYDROGEN engine, there are many kerosene engines that are cheaper, more powerful or both! Saturn F-1 was several times more powerful, and RD-180 currently used on Atlas V has bit more power and is significantly cheaper.
@Wayne Flanigan But engines play minor role anyway. Main problem is very low DENSITY. Hydrogen has 50% more impulse per weight, but has 11x times more volume than RP-1 kerosene!! It requires 10x bigger tanks, which adds weight and drag, and it needs cryogenic insulation which adds up more weight. On lower stages all the negatives far outweigh the positives.
On upper stages hydrogen is unbeatable, but notice that SpaceX has no hydrogen motors at all. They plan for them, but they know they add a lot of complexity and cost, and they're doing pretty well even without them.
@@Bizzon666 They're trying the next best thing for their Starship - the methane/oxygen engines.
Репостну другу! Пусть инглиш учит! И, да, спасибо!
Great video. It's interesting that they decided to have the liquid Oxigen on top. For the Space shuttle, it makes sense because the O2 pipe runs externally to connect to the Orbiter. In Saturn V the hydrogen was at the top, since passing the O2 pipe in the middle of the H2 tank could easily lead to frozen o2.
Mushrooms after the rain.....lol
I love this type of shit I'm into rockets airplanes and all different types of science I've always been interested and engineering and NASA but with that actually mean never a straight answer that's what NASA means they don't always tell you what's really going on
Pslv video pls😬😬
Maybe in the future United Launch Alliance can develop a successor called the Delta V (like the change in velocity)
I think space X in the future will have them all not too much longer.
Do a video about russian rocket pleasee
4:24 is that kerbal space program?
Yeah
so wich is the heaviest now? mmmmm missing info, points down
Falcon Heavy is the heaviest now. He said about it in the video
@@ervandrush3116 thanks, I didn't get it, must watch more carefully.
ULA did not develop for a long time and missed the revolution. I have no idea how they can compete with SpaceX and Blue Origin in the future
By funnelling money into SLS i guess
Blue Origin is making one of the Engines for the Vulcan.
They can't
@@portoalex1062 SpaceX is in the better position that’s for sure. ULA hopes to try and pull some of the rug back with Vulcan. Blue Origin though hasn’t launched much more than a sub orbital tourist platform. They have concepts for more but no hardware yet.
@@terranempire2 Exactly, they are way far behind Space-X. It will take too much money and too much time to cover all this "distance" and I'm not sure if they will able to make it. This new decade belongs to Space-X
Сразу видно что заглавие с русского веревили (Очень дорогое удовольствие). A very expensive pleasure здесь в этом контексте не применяется. 'A luxury' было бы правильнее.
4:22 kerbal space program ?
I think we need a specific and very descriptive name for rockets that aren't reusable. I suggest trash rockets because that's what they are. They get used, only once, and then it's for the trash. Simple and clear.
секн ю вери матч фор зис амазинг видео
F9 and FH are the absolute backbones of the worlds launch capability. That goes for the USA x2.
do soyuz
Second 🙋🏽♂️ :)
Let's get one thing straight. The DELTA IV is not an expensive rocket; ULA is an expensive space launch company. It's not the same thing. The rocket may not cost a lot in terms of Man-Hours, components or raw materials. But Uncle Sam is paying to keep the entire ULA workforce and brain trust employed.With an average of two launches a year that becomes very expensive. The EELV program, like NASA, is a JOBS PROGRAM. It's about paying a bunch of very specialized and very highly paid people to do... well... not too much, so that you don't need to start over the next time you want to do rocket science.
You're right that it is mostly political, but still it isn't cheap. Hydrogen lower stages are not a good idea, kerolox Atlas V is cheaper.
@@Bizzon666 Instead of the STS, Titan III/IV, Atlas III/V and the DeltaII/III/IV, the USA should have stuck with the a simple 2-stage rocket with a single F1 and a single J2. This is easily a 25 ton to LEO launch vehicle that will carry all the payloads that we flew in the last 40 years. I'll be roughly like an expendable Falcon 9 in capability. I'll be reliable. And, we could have spent all the money on missions instead of rockets. No, we couldn't have repaired the Hubble, but there will be so much money that a half dozen "spare" Hubbles could be sitting on the ground ready to replace it. It would have been politically OK too... there wasn't yet a shuttle workforce, industrial base and their Senatorial advocates at the time.
--
Specific impulse DOESN'T equate to performance -- if by performance you mean taking stuff into orbit or beyond. Hydrogen is the LEAST DENSE gas or liquid in the universe. Hydrogen engines are the lowest thrust chemical engines in rocketry. Using hydrogen means very big (hence heavy) tanks and very big engines. This offsets the advantages of higher specific impulse. It makes no sense for a 1st stage and one can argue that it still does makes sense for 1.5 stage designs like the shuttle and Ariane V. Why have an anemic engine and a huge tank then strap LOW IpSec solids to it such that (1) the combined liftoff specific impulse is lower than a hydrocarbon 1st stage and (2) the weights of the ground lit engine & its big tank is way worse than a cryogenic upper stage.
@@dwightlooi Man, I couldn't agree more! Shuttle is iconic to this day, but it was SUPER expensive and also dangerous. As you say, some Saturn derivative could have launched many Hubbles and everything else, and be much cheaper. I dislike Ariane (I'm European) as well. Low hydrogen density just totally kills it on lower stages.
And the SLS is the next political boondoggle job program money sinkhole...
@@Bizzon666 The STUPIDITY of the Shuttle can be summed up as follows:-
(1) It is a 104 ton launch vehicle carrying a 78 ton Orbiter leaving room for 26 tons of payload.
(2) The said 78 ton orbiter takes longer and costs much more to refurbish and refuse than any 26 ton launch vehicle by any country at any time.
(3) The said Orbiter cannot go anywhere but LEO.
(4) The said Orbiter puts 7 humans next to two megatons of liquid fuel and solid boosters with no launch escape system implemented or possible, ensuring that ANY loss of tank or booster containment guarantees a loss of crew -- something which is not true of ANY OTHER launch vehicle.
(5) The Shuttle cost NASA $206 billion -- 55.4% of its entire $377 billion budget over the same 30 period of its existence (1981 thru 2011) -- leaving little money to actually do missions after you pay the researches and the other fixed costs.
@@dwightlooi Nothing but the truth. Just the empty weight is absolutely crazy, it barely reached ISS, and no polar orbits. Safety was total joke.
And they knew it from the beginning, when they proposed the Shuttle they knew it would never reach promised parameters. They simply lied, whole thing is political from the very beginning, and remains political to this day with all the Shuttle derivatives.
Watching this instead of Donut Operator's live coverage of the "Mainly Peaceful" protests in Washington. So you can gauge how important you are.
For those of you insisting this is a violent protest, well it's a lot more peaceful than what was happening this summer and all the news sources told me that was "Mainly Peaceful"!
2,950kN = 663,186lbs force.
102% thrust? That doesn't sound legit.... violating physics haha.
Believe it or not. It’s accurate. The shuttle flew its liftoff at 110% thrust before throttle down
@@weekiely1233 well if hey sayin the thrust is 110% of the gravity force on the mass okay i can believe that. Just a funny way to quantify it I guess.
@@HerbstaMagus not it’s 110% the thrust the engine is rated to provide. It’s because 100% means fully open values so if the engine puts out more thrust than it normally does at this point it’s technically putting out over 100%
@@weekiely1233 reminds me of the stupid 150% recovery rates at lab i work at...
ULA is stuck in yesteryear's paradigm. Management of ULA is not capable of grasping the competitive threat SpaceX offers. ULA's Vulcan or ESA's Ariane 6 are not up to the task of competing with the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy on the basis of price and performance. Only the United States armed forces need to have redundant launch providers and the Europeans desire for domestic produced launch capacity keep them in business. When SpaceX's Starship / Superheavy drops launch costs even much further the desire for expensive dual launch capability and European chauvinism will be difficult to justify.
You really don’t know anything about ULA do you?
An impressive beast, but reusable rocketry makes seeing this thing launched a bit disgusting.
Why? Reusable rocketry is its own thing. With out the Delta IV heavy you would be out of a job. Electric cars make a 57 Chevy so discusting right?
Exactly, high deltaV missions will always expend the booster. SpaceX also doesn't re-use boosters launched at high inclinations.
In a few years time we will reflect on how ridiculous it was to build such magnificent (an expensive) machines and then smash them into a million pieces in the ocean just a few minutes after starting their engines for the first time.
It has of course always been ridiculous except that we just got used to this normal abnormality until one eccentric billionaire brought us back to our senses.
Your comment reveals a massive ignorance of the history of rocket development and spaceflight, and is coated in your obvious hero-worship of Elon Musk. You can make authorative-sounding statements like "It has _of course_ always been ridiculous", but that won't prevent people who actually know a thing or two from calling you on the fact that you obviously know nothing about the science involved. Have a nice day.
@@sixstringedthing It is quite the contrary. I used to believe the 'standard' view that reusability is impractical until not too long ago and was initially convinced Spacex was following a dead end path, as were some other small companies. It is precisely because I closer into the detail of rocket history that I changed my mind and discovered that the idea of expendable hardware was adapted for some very specific reasons applicable to the time but held on to later for all the wrong reasons.
@@listerdave1240 Alright, I should probably apologise for ripping in right away, and I see you are a fellow dwarfer, so let's consider this. You know that SpaceX doesn't recover every booster right? They still chuck them into the sea on high-inclination launches. I presume you understand the physics behind why that's the case? And you're aware of the fact that they can't recover second stages. So.......
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