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A comment on SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage. Parent comment

Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by Patrick_Devine on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @07:24PM (#8072148)
I would imagine if the rocket weren't traveling so fast, they could put wings on it and glide the thing back. That would save a lot of the 30% extra fuel if the weight penalty wasn't that significant. Adding more fuel definitely seems easier.
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Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by lutorm on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @09:22PM (#8072445)
The trouble is that wings also cost a lot of drag on ascent...
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Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by lotsofmangos on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @07:47PM (#8072216)
Long furled blades is another way to go, then you can have a heliroc. They work pretty nice as toys.
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Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by ansible on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @09:50PM (#8072536)
That sounds like the Roton by Rotary Rocket:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_Rocket

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Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by Crito on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @08:29PM (#8072311)
Heh, that would certainly put a positive twist on their spinning problem too. ;)
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Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by lotsofmangos on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @09:05PM (#8072408)
While it works nicely for recovering balsa and cardboard from a thousand feet or so, I have a sneaking suspicion that it might not scale all that well.
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