The cost of space travel is extremely high, around $10,000 per pound to reach low Earth orbit. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is attempting to lower these costs through reusability. On April 8th, 2016 SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship after previous attempts ended in failures. While reusability has been attempted before, such as with the Space Shuttle and DC-X program, SpaceX's recent success marks a significant step towards truly reusable rockets and lower cost space travel.

1. Full Circle
04/09/2016
SeanMontera
The cost to go intospace isusuallymeasuredinthe tensof thousandsof dollarsperpound. Inother
words,itcosts roughly$10,000 per poundtoget intoorbit. The average personwouldhave tospend
nearly$2 milliondollarsjusttogetto the edge of space. Andthisis justfor the person,tosay nothing
aboutthe cost of air, food,water,radiationshieldingandanythingelse youmightneedwhileinspace.
Thisabove all else isthe majordrawbackto space explorationanddevelopment.
A lotof thiscost isattributedtofuel andthe cost of disposablerocketstogetoutof the Earth’s gravity
well intothe zero-gravityspace outside ouratmosphere. Eventhe Space Shuttle,whichwasasclose to
reusable aswe have had inour workingfleetof Earth-to-orbitvehicles,still hadthisprice tag. So itis
not toosurprisingthatNASA andthe variouscorporationsinvolvedinspace travel are workingtobring
the cost down.
SpaceX’sFalcon9 rocketis justthe latestattemptat developingareusable rocketthatcandeliver
payloadsintospace andreturn to be refurbishedandsentbackup again. The Falcon9 hasalready
provenitsabilitytolaunchthe Dragon cargo capsule containingsuppliesforthe International Space
Stationinseveral pastlaunchesbutSpaceXhas had the goal of creatinga reusable launcherthatcan
landand be reusedquicklywhichwoulddrive downthe costof Earth-to-orbitlaunches.
April 8th
marks the firstsuccessful landingof aFalcon 9 rocket onan ocean retrieval vessel named“Of
Course I Still Love You”afterfour previousattemptsthatall endedinfailure andthe destructionof the
rocket. The mainproblemseemstobe stickingthe landing. The rocketreturnsto Earth ingood
condition,orientedwithitsrocketengine downtoslow it’sdecentinthe final secondsof the landing. It
isimportantto note that the fourfailureshave indeedlandedbuttippedoverandexplodeddue toa
combinationof factorsincludingroughseasandlanding gearproblems.
Thisis notan unknownproblem. Infact,an attemptinDecembertolandthe rocket onsolidground
endedinthe firsteversuccessful attempttolauncha payloadintospace and returnthe rocketsafelyto
the groundto be reused later. While thisisundoubtedly amilestone inthe reusablerocketproject,itis
unfortunately20yearssince it’slastmilestone.
Everyone knowsaboutthe supposedreusabilityof the Space Shuttle. Intruth,onlythe orbiteritself was
reusable,boththe externalfueltankandbothsolidrocketboostersare disposable andhadtobe
custommade for everyflight. The orbiteritself hadtobe refurbished,aprocesswhichtookseveral
weeksandcosta lotof moneyforeverylaunch. Inshort,the Space Shuttle was a firstattempt.
In 1993, NASA engineersattemptedtomake afullyreusablesingle stage rocketcapable of landing
verticallyandmade readytoflyagainquickly. The rocketwas dubbedthe DeltaClipperExperimental or
DC-Xand at 39-feet-tall resembledanoversizedtrafficcone. The projectwasa success,flyingperfectly
11 timesfrom’93 to ’96 as an example of the technology. However,the DC-X’scareerendedina
fireball whenonitsfinal flightitsuccessfullylandedonthe padonlyto have itslandinggearbuckle and
tipover.

2. A scaledupversionof the DC-X,dubbedDC-Xa,wasbuiltandthe technologywasfurtherrefined.
Indeed,atthe time itwas hopedthata future versionof the DC-Xwouldbe usedtoreplace the aging
Space Shuttle fleet. The DC-Xaflewhigherthanitspredecessorandwascapable of inair maneuvering
as well asvertical landingswhichitaccomplishedfourtimes. The DC-Xaalsoholdsthe recordforfastest
space vehicle turnaroundhavinglaunched,landedandlaunchedagainwithin26hours.
Sadly,the DC-Xprogram endedinJulyof 1996 whenlandingstrut2 failedtodeployuponlanding. The
rockettippedoverandexploded. The projectwhichcostNASA aroundlessthan$100 millionwasended
and the plansfor reusable rockets were shelved.
SpaceX’sFalcon9 rocketmay not have the successrate of the old DC-Xbut itcertainlyhasbeenworking
on the fundamental problemof vertical landings. Twentyyearsafterthe technologyhas beenproven,a
private companyhastakenthe next stepto builda reusable rocket.
The realityof thistechnologyisitthat isonlya steppingstone. Eventually,NASA hopestohave a whole
feetof reusable Earth-to-orbitcraftthatcan supplythe ISSand future missionstothe moonand
eventuallyMars but fornow hasto make do with‘cheap’disposablerockets.