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NASA Administrator seems to hint at 2nd Stage recovery (www.youtube.com)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Quote from Bill Nelson:

... SpaceX, by having the return of the first stage, has brought the cost down significantly. That has affected the entire launch industry. We'll be seeing attempts at bringing the second stage down on some missions.

The key sentence is (currently) 52 minutes and 48 seconds into the video. Approximately 49 minutes after the event started.

No other mention is made of this. Should we assume he's specifically referring to the 2nd Stage of the Falcon 9? What is the likelihood that he is mistaken? Could he just be thinking of the existing deorbit procedure? Or could SpaceX be putting parachutes on some of their 2nd Stages in the near future?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I for one welcome even just the hope that it might happen!

Is the 2nd Stage too heavy for a net? It's probably too much to hope that Ms. Tree comes out of retirement, right?

Any chance they could use second-hand dragon parachutes?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

One can hope! But it’s more likely he’s referring to Starship, no?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

My guesses

15% he's talking, confusingly, about Starship
25% he's mistaken in some other way
60% this is actually the plan

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

My updated guesses, after seeing the other comments, and some further thought.

25% he's talking, confusingly, about Starship
25% he's mistaken in some other way
50% this is actually the plan

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah, that's gotta be it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

It's more an issue of how you'll get the second stage to survive re-entry at orbital velocity. Which the current F9 upper stage can't pull off, seeing how it doesn't have heat shields. Bolting heat shields on it probably isn't happening, the added mass would cut into payload capacity too much.