[jcims]

That’s one of my favorite aspects of seeing Falcon 9 boosters coming back to port. Dirty as hell, maybe canted a wee bit. Looks like they went through something.

It will be interesting to see what the methane-fueled rockets look like when they come back. I’m guessing a lot less sooty. If SpaceX’s Starship keeps some exposed stainless i hope it gets a little of that exhaust pipe purple patina going. That would be awesome.

[bluedino]

As a kid, I was disappointed in how dirty the space shuttle was on visit to Cape Canaveral.

In young mind I expected this beautiful, gleaming massiv white shuttle. Instead, the real shuttle was dirty, dingy, all the tiles and body panels looked like they were randomly replaced, which makes sense as it had years and years of use.

[usrusr]

I doubt that they could or would dare to reuse one onscrubbed, but it could still be fun to put one one the ramp painted in that used look. Perhaps one side gleaming white, the other "this is not my first rodeo"?