News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by gadders on Thursday June 06, 2024 @01:22PM (#40600026)
Nor for me, but I'm old enough to have seen re-runs of things like Flash Gordon in black and white which I'm sure had rockets landing vertically. (This could be the Mandela effect though).
Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by shiroiushi on Thursday June 06, 2024 @09:29PM (#40604428)
It's not a false memory. Lots of old sci-fi in that time had vertically-landing rockets. Even old Looney Toones episodes IIRC, as well as Twilight Zone, and much more.

It's nothing special; it's a logical consequence of the question "how would you land a rocket" when you assume the rocket is single-stage and can just travel from world to world, and you're a fiction writer who doesn't understand (or purposely neglects) the rocket equation. I mean, how else would you land a rocket, so it can be blasted off again? (Again, remember this is sci-fi that's very light on the "sci" part, where they're thinking in the future that humans will have self-contained rocket ships that can just travel from world to world without worrying about supporting infrastructure, the rocket equation, having enough fuel, needing to do any maintenance, etc.)