Why are the chopsticks so important after SpaceX already landed rockets?
In: Planetary Science
The bigger the rocket the bigger the legs you need. If you want to reuse the legs and not just crush them, you need to make them beefier.
The bigger the legs, the more fuel and performance you need just to get those legs into orbit and decelerated when landing.
When you’re building the most massive rocket ever built, you would need truly crazy legs in order to land. There’s also considerations like not destroying a pad (See the first integrated Starship test flight where they completely shredded the pad even launching off of a raised launch mount). So basically it would be completely infeasible to land a rocket that big on legs.
So beyond just the cool factor, you have the most massive rocket ever built – also reusable (pending further development, but good start). Which means much, much, much cheaper missions versus just tossing everything into the ocean.
Edit: Also, faster turnaround if you can literally just catch a rocket and set it right back on the launch mount, versus having it land on a separate pad or a droneship on the ocean. We’re obviously a ways away from that being a consideration, but that’s what Starship is designed to do when it’s fully operational.
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