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Re:SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite la... by ctthill on Friday May 06, 2016 @01:22PM (#11645341)
KE = 0.5mv^2, so the second stage would only have 16x the kinetic energy if the two stages had the same mass.

The dry mass of the first stage is approximately 25,600kg. At 2km/s, its kinetic energy is 51.2 terajoules. The dry mass of the second stage is approximately 3,900kg. At 8km/s, its kinetic energy is 125 terajoules.

So the KE of the second stage is actually about ~2.4x that of the first stage.

Here is were I found the masses of the stages: http://spaceflight101.com/spacerockets/falcon-9-v1-1-f9r/

Re:SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite la... by mikeash on Friday May 06, 2016 @01:24PM (#11645354)
I meant relative to the mass of the stage, since that's what's relevant to the challenge.