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hinkley • yesterday at 11:27 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

I think I’m convinced that VTOL is a better engineering trade off for space ships rather than making space planes.


Replies

pigpop • today at 1:15 AM

Absolutely, wings only work in Earth's atmosphere. Rocket propulsion can work anywhere. Leaving the landing gear on Earth is also a no brainer since it's only ever used there so why bring it all the way to orbit with you? Thankfully all the other rocks we'd want to land on have much lower gravity so landing on them can be done with lightweight legs. Hell, maybe there's a way to send the landing structure ahead of time like some variation on that Chinese cable catcher they used for their copycat.