mocosoft
222991
364
16
Source: @DrBenMiles on YouTube
Aug 5, 2026 2:37 AM
mocosoft
222991
364
16
Source: @DrBenMiles on YouTube
clonedeeznuts
Kinda hard to innovate when your govt incites violence within instead of collaboration
steelinmyhead
I for one applaud the 4000 year old history and achievements of my future overlords.
doctorId
Can we launch him out of the atmosphere and make him a literal space billionaire?
ProfFurryPaws
So basically the same tech that catches planes on an aircraft carrier, but pointed up. Then arraigned in a circle. And topped off with like a laser-guided game of cornhole.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
F9 uses radar for final guidance instead of LIDAR - I can't see a huge difference here even with the gases in the middle. Miles says that the catch cables "stretch" but they must be unspooling against a brake.
Blue Origin has a _patent_ for a system on the same principle, different geometry: https://parolaanalytics.com/parolanews/blue-origin-new-glenn-rockets-patents/#:~:text=Elevated
JustSomePersonThere
It’s so goddamn brilliant I can’t get over it.
TresusIbor
That's...a really good fucking idea.
Imalwaysready
True innovations come from stepping away from accepted solutions and conceiving of a whole new way to do it. This has some issues, perhaps, but also solves a lot of other ones. Very ingenious solution. I’d say “hopefully we can get that creative again,” but we’re smashing educational budgets and putting vaccine deniers in charge of national health programs, so probably not.
Einbrecher
Not really, given that the only thing a Falcon 9 needs to land is a mostly flat surface. You shift the complexity to the catching system, which is fine for ship-based captures (and probably preferable), but that's about it. If a Falcon 9 impacts a pad, you land the next one 100ft to the right. If one of these hits the tower, you can't land anything else until you fix the tower, and missing the tower is a loss. The Falcon 9's legs also aren't that heavy in the grand scheme of things.
faithydiesalot
It's cheap infra - probably cheaper than the robot grabber that SpaceX ships use to keep the rocket from sliding all over the pad. The scenario where legs make it simple is return-to-launch-site, which reduces payload capacity (fuel saved for the return trip).
Einbrecher
It's probably a wash TBH. China's rocket still needs grabbed/secured once caught - those cables aren't enough. It's just far less likely to slip/skid off the deck like Falcon has done. It's an improvement, sure, but it also locks you into a less flexible infra. If the fuel savings was that significant between boat landing and return to launch site, SpaceX wouldn't be doing RTL anymore...yet they retired one of the boats a few months ago without replacement and did a RTL last week.
lonelyrangerofthedreams
Seems that after all investing in R&D, science and technology without corporative bullshits pays off
RetrogradeLlama
Fuck MElon.
mocosoft
Hell yeah!! And Trump.
Osiricus
Feels weird to be rooting for China but it is them against the most pathetic and homely Temu Bond villain that thinks he should be the leader of humanity.
kerBamf
Why land when you can catch? Works great for the Rwandan medical delivery drones, why not rockets?
thewiggins
I see an issue with re-usability, they are using kerosene, which cakes on thick carbon deposits. They would have to clean and refurbish every engine between launches, which might cost more than making new ones. If they plan on switching to a cleaner fuel, then this is a good stepping stone, otherwise, it's just propaganda.
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thewiggins
it still leaves soot because it is a long chain hydrocarbon, you cannot get it to burn 100% predictably because of the number of possible reactions
faithydiesalot
RP1 is highly purified kerosene - the rockets using it are even called "kelolox". And it produces some soot and coking, way more than methane, not from impurites but simply incomplete combustion (like benzene). Merlin engines have to be cleaned between flights.
LerryV2
The first major successful landing rocket that Im aware of was the McDonnell Douglas DC-X in the 90s.
OnFridaysWeWearBeskar
Sure, but not something that became common place. Abandoned as a technology because NASA had a very strict limitation on innovation that took risks. After very public NASA failures that cost lives, their management essentially remains stagnant because they refused innovation as failure would not be accepted.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
Yes. Although it didn't have to decelerate from orbital speeds because its purpose was to demonstrate propulsive landing.
ineedausernamerightmeow
China really got that copy your shit by make it better strategy down. Good to see the victim is someone who deserves such fate this time.
Funkman418
WE NEED A DIFFERENT SPACE PROGRAM, WE NEED SOMEONE TO INSPIRE, EXPLORE, PROVIDE VALID INFORMATION, NOT MUSHRAT fantasy, pedophilia, hatred !!!!
Resistance1000
waithk1
SpaceX had the same idea. But you need larger support structures and, consequently, huge ships for the higher rocket stages. That’s why they abandoned the idea.
Necrothean
Imgurians lately: "I know we used to love championing causes like saving the Uyghur people from Chinese government backed genocide... but China has a new net that catches rockets."
Y'all just keep right on falling for Chinese tech propaganda because they and their sycophantic YouTube creators coalition show you cute videos of things they claim are commonplace and everyday and you don't even challenge it. Meanwhile, they're still exporting melamine filled dog food. Tankie Behavior.
pocketpython
Oh I KNOW the Chinese government is awful and has and is doing heinous things, however anything that reduces SpaceX's and Elon's advantage and power in the Space flight game (and also REALLY pisses that weirdo off) can't be a totally bad thing!
Anything to reduce the money and power around Elon.
Churchill said of allying with Stalin in WW2 against the Nazis - “If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”
Skevoid
The US government's MANY extreme breaches of morality aren't brought up (and don't need to be) when we celebrate NASA's achievements, this is no different.
wadatahmydamie
“Thing?! WhataboutOTHERthing?!”
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
it'd be easier to say "don't take this to mean that China's government is now nice"
HenryLongfellowIII
Compare booming affluent Xinjiang and the Gaza death zone and ask yourself if one of those looks more like "genocide" than the other. It's not "whataboutism" it is about the meaning of words and the attempts to twist them.
Tarmaccian
This is really a big deal. The current spaceflight situation is SpaceX as the best launch provider, then a giant gap… no, bigger than you’re thinking… then everyone else.
Reusable launch vehicles make a huge difference in the costs of spaceflight, to the point where everybody else is winning zero competitive contracts.
Putting China in a solid #2 spot is a major change in how spaceflight and geopolitics interact. It’ll be interesting times ahead.
ionlyregisteredtosavelinks
Calm down, elmo.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
Maybe look up the facts of their performance independently of the asshole on top of that company.
iamahorriblemonsterwhodeservesdeath
Sounds like Ol'Muskie is going to be super fixated on trash-talking China from here on out.
Evi1Gav
Ariane does 3 or 4 commercial launches annually, it appears to be the primary vehicle for Amazon's leosat system. Space X maybe cheaper, but it has a political component that makes it too expensive for a lot of countries.
Tarmaccian
Yep, and I think ULA has a small stock of vehicles left, and Blue Origin is working on it.
They aren’t getting the _competitive_ contracts, though. They’re getting jobs where the customer says (for any reason) “we won’t use SpaceX”. It’s a big problem, because those contracts are needed for further development.
I was expecting Rocket Lab or BO to get reusability next and hopefully fix this mess. China may be a strange twist.
CallMeCourierSix
France just demonstrated a rocket that took off, moved laterally, and landed again, so they're right up there with China in terms of reusable rockets.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
SpaceX wasn't going to be alone forever although they did a superb job as a first mover. Tesla also took a good lead although that gap is closing a lot faster (for everyone's good).
Tarmaccian
Yep… but the situation for my Cape Canaveral friends is kinda scary. If Bezos drops Blue Origin, or if the government stops the SLS money dump, or a handful of other scenarios… it basically becomes SpaceX running the whole show.
The odds of having a second mover have been dwindling, and now this… “weird” is the only way I can describe it. Not sure how it’ll affect the future of the Cape folks.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
Bezos might _sell off_ BO, although the new CEO seems to be delivering.
Tarmaccian
Ah, but would he sell it to someone with as much fuck-you-I-want-rocket-dick funding supply?
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
if you mean New Shepard, it was a good test bed / demonstrator for propulsive landing and the experience will probably help with a lunar lander (they made a proposal)
bbrtki
kinda rooting for china here.
AdrianDunne
It's a sign of how much reputational damage has been done to the US.
OnFridaysWeWearBeskar
China is asshoe.
If you ever root for them, you're dumber than you look. Or a Chinese bot.
bbrtki
Yeah, no.
China can be assholes, but at the current world situation who would you be rooting for?
Russia? Absolutely not.
USA? Child molester and nazis,. i dont think so.
China? Out of the 3 main space powers,. i fear it's going to have to be team red yo.
zuurg
yeah, no. 'china can be assholes, but..' either you're a tankie pos or have absolutely no fucking clue. u wanna see what 70 more years of trumpism looks like take a closer look at the prc. dont root for that if yr not a cunt
OnFridaysWeWearBeskar
If you truly believe all of that, you're better off rooting for none of them.
freshthrowaway1138
You understand that you don't have root for anyone, right? Like there doesn't have to be a simple dichotomy of good guy vs bad guy. My team vs your team. None of it. You can support a wide variety of groups, while also condemning a wide variety of groups- including the one you support for a particular reason. You can use a sliding scale of this group does this well and this poorly. No heroes. No rooting. Just seeing everyone for what they are.
China is a good tech place, but is a fascist state.
Resistance1000
On the other hand...
Heelcat70
I'm surprised they didn't build a giant catcher's mitt.
ReepostStatistics
Why is he holding the microphone?
Resistance1000
On the other hand...
discostewsm
Reusing would drastically reduce overall costs, but I wonder how much maintenance would be needed to make it usable again. It definitely wouldn't be a simple refueling.
freshthrowaway1138
Would? Do you not know that rockets have been recovered and reused for a decade now?
discostewsm
Given how this is making it sound like it's a new thing......
freshthrowaway1138
This particular way of catching the rocket is a new thing. Catching rockets isn't. Did you not watch the short video? It literally lays out the ways the SpaceX has been doing this, and then they show this new way that the Chinese have figured it out. How are you people so confident in your ignorance? It's like you've never even thought to do a simple google search on a subject. Do you even know how to google, or do you expect everything to be handed to you in a meme format?!
discostewsm
Sounds like you had a bad day. Relax for a bit.
freshthrowaway1138
It's not a bad day, it's just coming across such blatant anti-intellectualism caused me to go a bit into rant mode. Because y'all are the types that Asimov warned us about,
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/456687-there-is-a-cult-of-ignorance-in-the-united-states
Resistance1000
On the other hand...
Resistance1000
On the other hand...
Resistance1000
On the other hand...
NotThePoint
To be fair, it's easier to design something that works after seeing someone try several things that did not. Additionally, it's a state owned corp, which means it's basically the CCP. All this is to say, now two assholes have reusable rockets.
IlluminaBlade
Also how Japan of all nations is demonstrating the first economically viable railguns.
thewiggins
I am only surprised that they are not mounted on mechs yet.
IlluminaBlade
Unfortunately material science as we know it says that giant bipeds is a terrible idea.
Could keep looking forward to these though.
thewiggins
I don't care if it is terrible, rule of cool
IlluminaBlade
Let your opponents weed out the bad ideas and engage in just a smidgen of corporate espionage.
OnFridaysWeWearBeskar
IP theft is the base foundation of China's entire infrastructure.
mocosoft
Out of curiosity, who did the Chinese steal this idea from?
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
doesn't matter - in engineering idea are a dime a dozen until someone puts in the work to test them, and even then you have to ask if they were implemented as well as it could
Einbrecher
Hard to call it stolen given how old/proven the idea of catching aircraft/spacecraft with cables is.
KillingTlme
In the meantime, our planet is dying and billions are starving. But cool toy.
BackReggin
I can't imagine why rocket scientists aren't solving world hunger instead of doing this. Perhaps its because they work in an entirely unrelated field?
wadatahmydamie
Yeah we should probably halt technological advancement because something else exists.
Wait, why do you have an internet-connected device? Shouldn’t you be selling it and using the money to send water to a village?
freshthrowaway1138
Toy? Do you really not understand how the space program saves millions of lives?
jqubed
Interesting catching technique. We seem to be reaching a point where anyone who isn’t building for reusability is going to find themselves financially unable to compete in the launch market.
jayman0123
I'm pretty sure I saw the solution on TV like 40 years ago. A very resourceful mind used a stationary launching device and relied on launching smaller loads at great speeds that if properly scaled up, could potentially make escaping Earth's gravity easier. It would take a pretty large upscaling though - https://youtu.be/5aCgSwmm5Ho?t=93&feature=shared
gman003
We have been in that point for probably a decade. Russia's foreign launch market had already dried up, when their warmongering put a hard stop to it. Older US launch companies basically survive off the government not wanting SpaceX to have a monopoly. Ariane is similarly struggling to find customers besides ESA.
At this point, the question is whether you build for first-stage-only reuse, like Falcon 9, or if you go for full-stack reuse, like Starship is aiming for.
mabbo
The moment SpaceX re-flew a booster, 10 years go, that became true. Every single aerospace company knew that. Blue Origin is getting close to catching up and China has so many rocket companies that one *had* to get there eventually. But Russia doesn't have the resources to make a competitor, and the rest of the US Space Industry is too fat off government handouts.
curolina
I think Rocket Lab is very much in the race with Blue Origin, but both of are competing with Falcon 9. If SpaceX gets Starship working they're going to be another 20 years or more ahead of any competition.
CommodusLeitdorf
Yeah using a sort of net to catch it makes a lot more sense than trying to stick a ground landing each time.
ninjafartball
Now let's apply that to plastic..
Userlivewire
There were only half a dozen countries reliably getting anything to space in the first place.
Reusability brings the cost down so countries that are not superpowers can afford to invest in the infrastructure.
MammaryExhibitNumberOne
It is true for low orbit flights. They plan on filling low orbit with thousands of junk satellites for their respective constellations.
oblimo
Kessler Syndrome, here we come?
curolina
Filling is a strong word. LEO planes run between 41,000 and 52,000km in circumference, so with a single orbit and spacing a satellite out by a whole kilometer you could fit 20,000 satellites on the same orbital path. "Low" LEO is about 200km up and "High" LEO is about 2,000km up, so spacing them vertically by a whole kilometer and that's 18 million satellites in a single band of LEO. There are thousands of bands, so it would take billions of satellites to fill LEO.
Imalwaysready
My plan is to turn the boosters into commercial airliners. You put a bunch of people in a protected compartment down the side. Then you use it to launch a rocket from Florida. They detach at the edge of space, wings pop out, it reorients itself horizontally, and then all the travelers glide all the way to Europe with stunning views.
Early tests incinerated everyone’s luggage, and in-flight beverage services were a little messy, but we’ll get there.
HenryLongfellowIII
Maybe some kind of composite resin fiber construction, submarine style?
freshthrowaway1138
So Virgin Galactic?
https://youtu.be/sVZPvRd6txc
Imalwaysready
You’re hired!