So yes, I agree, it is akin to saying that.
That is completely false. First of all, NASA didn't nix it, they just didn't make it a priority as it had little value from their perspective.
The reason it was not done is that para-shouts have to be in the design anyway for abort situations, so that was fixed.
So for SpaceX, the question was to likely delay the program, and take on a whole lot of extra engineering work that they were not actually getting paid for, remember fixed price contract.
They were only going to work on it if they really thought they needed it for something like Red Dragon. And then they could still add it later.
And one of the primary reason SpaceX thought that its to hard, is that they landing feet would have to have gone threw the heat shield. That would have made the whole heat-shield design massively more complex.
NASA likes parachutes because they've always used parachutes. SpaceX likes retropulsive landings because Mars is their goal, and Mars' atmosphere isn't dense enough for parachutes. It's also safer for the crew in nominal operation and enables a much higher degree of rapid reuse, relative to NASA's traditional operation of taking a salt water bath in the ocean.
So they could go through the [very reasonable] extensive costs and testing involved in proving the safety of the retropulsive landings, or just go old school, strap a few parachutes on and work on getting crew to the ISS (which was the goal at the time). They chose the latter and with the plan of getting back to retropulsive landings later, which they also did. Parachutes remain the main landing mechanism for the Crew Dragon, but it now also has retropulsive landing capabilities to be used in case of a chute failure.
[1] - https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/10/dragon-propulsive-la...
This is not the only hurdle. You can have an airport right next to a major city, with hundreds of arrivals and departures each day.
The same cannot be said for a Starship spaceport. Due to very loud launch, sonic booms on landing [0], and the danger of dropping a Starship onto populated areas, it would likely need to be offshore. That requires a boat, so now boarding a Starship involves thinking about sea states, taking a ferry ride on each side, and more.
Starship is super cool, but point to point Starship is a bit of a fantasy when you start to get to the nitty gritty.
[0] https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/11/starships-sound-stud... (TL;DR: Super Heavy's sonic booms are 110 dB when standing 20 km from the booster.)
Wikipedia: The flush cockpit means that the long and pointed nose-cone will obstruct all forward vision. The X-59 will use an enhanced flight vision system (EVS), consisting of a forward 4K camera with a 33° by 19° angle of view, which will compensate for the lack of forward visibility.
erikerikson•3h ago
epicureanideal•3h ago
$1000 vs $2400 to get to Europe in 6 hours instead of 12? A lot of people who just hate those long flights would pay for it, especially given that flights are only a portion of total vacation cost, together with hotels, etc.
Or for a flight inside the US, $1000 rather than $400, but to get from coast to coast in 3 hours rather than 6, may be very worth it for some people.
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/107206/how-clos...
erikerikson•3h ago
pests•2h ago
adgjlsfhk1•2h ago
bawolff•2h ago
After all, concorde design started almost 75 years ago, surely we've learned a thing or two on how to design aircrafts with lower maintenance & operating costs in that time.
lazide•2h ago
The only reason it kept flying for 33 years is a vanity project for national airlines.
Which it was excellent at. Actually viable business? Not so much.
wat10000•2h ago
lazide•2h ago
It was able to coast, eventually, but that’s some very fancy accounting.
“French Transport Minister Daniel Hoeffel, saying France ''will not and cannot abandon Concorde,'' signed a new agreement with Air France this week. The French Government, which with Britain had spent more than $2 billion developing the world's first supersonic passenger aircraft, will pay 90 percent of the plane's estimated operating losses for the next three years, compared with 70 percent in the past.
Under the new pact, the French taxpayer will contribute $66 million this year to the cost of Air France's champagne-and-caviar service linking Paris with New York, Washington, Caracas and Rio de Janeiro. In 1982, when losses are expected to decline slightly, the subsidy will be about $64 million, and in 1983, $59 million.”
wat10000•2h ago
lazide•1h ago
epicureanideal•1h ago
If California High Speed Rail loses a little bit of money, I won't be too upset by it. Unfortunately the up front costs are much higher, but at the same time, massive, massive infrastructure development is happening in California all along the length of the state, and the government is acquiring the rights to develop public transportation both now and into the future on that land. Again, there are worse ways to spend the money in my opinion.
lukan•17m ago
Bad for climate. Bad for the people below enjoying the noise. Bad for all the other things you could do with 2 billion. (A lot)
Only good for people who want jetting quickly around the World.
Amd it is good for material research, but that's the same argument for military development.
bawolff•1h ago
> The only reason it kept flying for 33 years is a vanity project for national airlines.
Something that loses money, but not so much money that it can't be justified as a vanity project, seems like the sort of thing that could be profitable with tweaks and improvements.
Like it didn't work, but it was close enough to working that reasonable investors could say: second time will be the charm. Especially given how much more mature aeroplane technology is now vs the 1950s.
To put it in perspective, we first broke the sound barrier in 1947. People started designing the concorde in 1954 only 7 years later. It is now three quarters of a century later. Technology has improved a lot since then.
jauntywundrkind•1h ago
Boom is talking about "Boomless Cruise" being up to mach 1.3. they are trying to bounce the downward going sound waves off the atmosphere, bouncing them back up. It seems to be significantly speed dependent? https://boomsupersonic.com/press-release/boom-supersonic-ann...
hnlmorg•59m ago
It was also far less pleasant a ride than even most economy class tickets for long hall flights. The space was more cramped and it was much louder inside the cabin. Personally, Id rather spend more for nicer seats on a longer flight than worse seats on a shorter flight. And a lot of people with money felt the same.
Design changes might help with the passenger comfort problem but when the plane is already running at a loss, it’s a hard sell asking for more R&D costs (which would be massive) to redevelop the concord.
panick21_•2h ago
Boom the only company trying to seriously do it, and they are facing a major uphill battle and will need many billions more.
And this NASA project doesn't really solve the problem, because its primary way to avoid the noise, is to reduce what would be cabin space for the already limited space. So that makes commercial viability even worse.
burnt-resistor•1h ago
https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/breaking-the-sound-barrier-...
supportengineer•2h ago
burnt-resistor•1h ago
Boom claims to have completed their Overture facilities and plans to unveil a completed aircraft this year.[0]
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_Overture