[ktpecot]

I mean from a technological point of view sure, but that just shows how bad the design was(compared to what we know now). The falcon program shows that it’s obviously way more economical to just ditch the 2nd stage and reuse the booster. F9 launches cost sub 20 million and a shuttle launch costs on the order of a billion. Squabble over whatever details you want about performance or who had to do what R&D but F9 is clearly in a different league.

[dylan604]

> Squabble over whatever details you want about performance or who had to do what R&D but F9 is clearly in a different league.

Falcon 9 First launch attempt 2007 [0]

Shuttle First launch 1981 [1]

I wonder if there's an advantage to having 26 years of watching someone else before designing yours? You also act like the rockets from the shuttle were not reused. They always (except for 2 instances) came back with the shuttle. The SRBs were also recovered, so it's not like these were wasted.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_b...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

[ktpecot]

I’m not disputing SpaceX had the advantage of learning from peoples mistakes. And I’m not arguing that they didn’t physically get the engines and boosters back I’m just saying that calling the space shuttle and F9 both reusable may be semantically true but is really not giving an accurate representation.

[dylan604]

SpaceX is also contributing to the increasing amounts of space junk. How long is the second stage just floating around after delivering payloads? Once the shuttle delivered payloads, it just left nothing but space.

[mlindner]

A brief look would have you find that for most (but not all) launches the second stage de-orbits after one or two orbits and isn't even left in orbit for a day. (For some launches it's impossible to de-orbit the stage and no matter which provider you launch with will leave a second stage as junk in orbit.)

Also, this isn't just SpaceX, every launching country/company leaves second stages in orbit, some, unlike SpaceX, don't even try to dispose of their second stages and leave all second stages in orbit.

I'd recommend reading up more on the topic as I think you read something at some point and think that SpaceX is an especially bad actor in the space when in fact they are one of the most responsible actors, if not _the_ most responsible actor, in the space launch sector at the moment.

[dylan604]

SpaceX is launching stuff at an incredible rate. That's the great thing, but it also means that as they continue to launch, the amount of 2nd stages left behind will only increase.

I didn't read anything one time in weird corner of the internet like seem to want to insinuate. There are plenty of sites where you can see the items being tracked. There is a large number of second stages in orbit that are not coming back any time soon. It might have been some coincidental bit of luck that on one particular perusal of one of these sites I just happened to click on 2 such items. Again, as they continue to increase the rate of launches, this will become an issue. And obviously, I don't believe SpaceX is the only such party doing this. That's just an unintelligent comment to have made.

[mlindner]

> SpaceX is launching stuff at an incredible rate. That's the great thing, but it also means that as they continue to launch, the amount of 2nd stages left behind will only increase.

You seem to be saying that all entities globally should as a whole launch less objects into space, as you imply that putting more objects into space is a net negative. That's fine to think but I strongly disagree that we as a planet should launch less objects into space.

> There is a large number of second stages in orbit that are not coming back any time soon.

I agree, which is why we should push for regulations that require satellite operators to have plans to de-orbit their satellites at end of life and/or not launch to orbits where the launching stage cannot quickly de-orbit within a set number of years. However simply pushing for all countries to launch less things into space, as you seem to be saying, is not a good idea.

[Robotbeat]

Almost Immediately after the payload is deployed, the second stage does a deorbit burn. So maybe an hour? Each Shuttle launch ended with ditching the enormous external tank into like the Indian Ocean, far more dry mass in the atmosphere/ocean than a Falcon 9 upper stage. (Also, the ET was about $100-150 million apiece.)

[dylan604]

I was not aware of the second stage doing a de-orbit burn. TIL

[ktpecot]

Lol are you just making stuff up now? The second stage re enters the atmosphere and burns up.

[dylan604]

No, it was a legit question. It depends on the payload though right? For StarLink deployments at LEO, I'm sure it re-enters soon-ish. But what about for higher altitude launches of other types of satellites? How long does the second stage float around?

[mlindner]

If you have questions I'd suggest asking them as a question. Your post read as a statement of fact with a rhetorical question attached.