The engineering required to do this looks insane but can anyone the reasoning for such a massive undertaking?
In: 1
In a very dense atmosphere like Earth’s, it’s far and away the most efficient way of losing lots of speed as it requires no fuel – you’re just exchanging speed for enormous amounts of heat. So as long as you can withstand the heat, it’s far more efficient than turning around and blasting the engines in the opposite direction (something they *also* do). They do this because, unlike all other rockets, theirs need to be traveling at roughly 0m/s at the point they land.
(It’s the exact same process as capsules re-entering Earth’s orbit – they rely on the dense atmosphere to slow them down).
Latest Answers