[AR] Re: Recovery of Electron 1st stages
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2019 19:23:09 -0400 (EDT)
On Thu, 8 Aug 2019, Craig Fink wrote:
RocketLab hasn't actually recovered successfully yet, but they have a
very reasonable plan and direction that should lead them down the road
to success. The plan is similar to what SpaceX did... Cheap incremental
development. Fly, modify, fly, modify, repeat until done.
Remember that a very reasonable-sounding plan and direction does not
guarantee that there *is* a road to success. For SpaceX, incremental
development of the undecelerated-reentry-splash-down-and-fish-out concept
led nowhere, at substantial cost, and "done" meant admitting failure and
abandoning that plan and direction completely. They achieved success only
by a drastic change of approach.
Henry
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