Could anybody here comment on the differences between spacex's engine, and the engines on the space shuttle?
Shuttle boosters are solid-fuel, so they can't restart, can't land, and were ditched in the ocean and refurbed. In contrast the 1st stage of spacex rockets can land itself.
I was under the impression that SpaceX was trying to make the first re-usable rocket stage, but I've recently found out that that isn't true. The space shuttle already holds that title.
For certain values of re-usable. It was pretty much stripped and refurbed for each mission, at enormous cost. The costs of spacex are orders of magnitude smaller.
I'm also kindof curious why they decided to go with a vertical-landing-design,
Shuttle boosters are solid-fuel, so they can't restart, can't land, and were ditched in the ocean and refurbed. In contrast the 1st stage of spacex rockets can land itself.
I was under the impression that SpaceX was trying to make the first re-usable rocket stage, but I've recently found out that that isn't true. The space shuttle already holds that title.
For certain values of re-usable. It was pretty much stripped and refurbed for each mission, at enormous cost. The costs of spacex are orders of magnitude smaller.
I'm also kindof curious why they decided to go with a vertical-landing-design,
This design works everywhere, not just earth.