SpaceX Grasshopper reusable rocket improves leap to 131 feet (video)

engadgit ^ | posted Dec 26th, 2012 at 5:27 AM | By Brian Heater

[BenLurkin]

Not to mix Aesop's Fables or anything, but when it comes to the world of commercial space race, sometimes slow and steady is the thing. A couple months back, we watched SpaceX's reusable vertical takeoff, vertical landing rocket, the Grasshopper, nudge its way off the ground. And while this current test isn't exactly the "few hundred feet to two miles" that we were promised, it's quite literally a step in the right direction, at 131 feet, plus some quality hover time. All in all, the test, conducted December 17th in McGregor, Texas, took around 29 seconds to unfold. Relive it in the video after the break.

[rstrahan]

Very inefficient. You have to add thrust for every pound of fuel. If you are planning to use fuel for a controlled landing, you have to launch that fuel in the first place. More fuel requires more fuel, and so on. Look at the huge tanks on the shuttle just to launch the thing. Then double that.

[rstrahan]

Very inefficient. You have to add thrust for every pound of fuel. If you are planning to use fuel for a controlled landing, you have to launch that fuel in the first place. More fuel requires more fuel, and so on. Look at the huge tanks on the shuttle just to launch the thing. Then double that.

[chuckles]

I understand the physics involved are complex, but after watching the Fox Special on the moon landing, you have to see the disappointment involved after 40 years of waiting for something else. I’m 61, so I have seen everything we have done since Sputnik. IMHO, the shuttle should have been used to shuttle stuff into orbit to assemble to make the trip to Mars. Having a “Buck Rogers” type vehicle to use for space travel will cost too much and take too long. We could have assembled a vehicle in space to travel to Mars and back years ago. We could have shuttled fuel and water by the boxcar up there to tag along with us on our way. When we returned to Earth orbit, a shuttle could have landed us again to be reused again and again. Even using a capsule to send us back to earth would be cheaper. As it is, I don’t see how the froggy thingy carries enough fuel to do anything. Just the weight of the fuel prohibits carrying much else.

[Jack Hydrazine]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSF81yjVbJE

[JRandomFreeper]

I think you miss that slowing down to reasonable speeds doesn't require fuel for most of the trip back, where launch requires fuel for every single ft/sec gained.

Aerobraking slowed the shuttle to just a couple of hundred miles an hour. Ditto with the capsules. After that, parachutes were used, or, in the case of the space shuttle, parachutes and brakes.

/johnny

[andyk]

That's pretty cool. This flight from way back in 1995 of the DC-X was pretty cool too.

[Born to Conserve]

The right control can make a brick glide with no wings. With the right combination of “brick flying”, parachutes, and a short terminal rocket impulse and vertical landing, it could work.

[dsrtsage]

Presenting: The Grasshopper

[hopespringseternal]

Fuel is a heck of a lot cheaper than throwing away the entire vehicle.

And wings require extra fuel as well.

[jmcenanly]

All of the Space-x vehicles have names derived from popular culture.The Dragon spacecraft comes from Puff the Magic Dragon, you’ve shown us the origin of ‘Grasshopper’, while the Falcon launcher takes it s name from the other famous spaceship for hire, the Millennium Falcon.Not as impressive as ‘Saturn’ or ‘Apollo’, but much more impressive than ‘STS”, ‘ISS’ or ‘SLS’