Honda Global | Honda R&D Co., Ltd., a research and development subsidiary of Honda Motor Co., Ltd., today conducted a launch and landing test of an experimental reusable rocket*1 (6.3 m in length, 85 cm in diameter, 900 kg dry weight/1,312 kg wet weight) developed independently by Honda. The test was completed successfully, the first time Honda landed a rocket after reaching an altitude of nearly 300 meters.
The issue is not going up, it’s going over. If we only cared about the private sector getting people into space, that happened on a fully reusable vehicle twenty years ago.
The problem is getting things to stay in space. Not trying to Elon-stan here, but getting a rocket into orbit is many fold more difficult than just getting into space.
The issue is not going up, it’s going over. If we only cared about the private sector getting people into space, that happened on a fully reusable vehicle twenty years ago.
The problem is getting things to stay in space. Not trying to Elon-stan here, but getting a rocket into orbit is many fold more difficult than just getting into space.
Yeah, if by “going over”, you mean accelerating in the horizontal direction, then you’re right.
Just to illustrate this: Consider we want to put 1 kg of mass into orbit.
First, we have to raise it by 100 km. That requires 1e6 J = 1 MJ of energy (formula is m*g*h).
Then, we have to accelerate it sideways, to a speed of 8 km/s. The energy to do that is 32 MJ (formula is ½*m*v²).
So, most of the energy (97%) is actually in the sideways movement.