Discussion Poll: Views on reusable launch vehicles

[Pipcard]

I'm wondering what is the current state of this forum in regards to how its members regard the idea of reusable launch vehicles. On one end, some people believe fully reusable heavy launchers will supplant all other launch vehicles in service today; on the polar opposite, others doubt the economic viability of reusability and prefer to "wait and see" if it's worth it.

How do you think most
[*] payloads will be launched in the near future (5-10 years)?
(* "Most" being defined as the greatest share of the total mass sent by all rockets to low Earth orbit in a year.)

(Note that the fully reusable options refer to the maximum payload, which means that a launcher that can launch 70 metric tons to low Earth orbit is not limited to payloads that are above 60 tonnes.)

This is just a survey of the current opinion climate of this forum.

 

[Urwumpe]

5 years (-2022): Mostly expendable
10 years (2023 - 2027): Partially reusable rockets will start to dominate.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

If Blue Origin can get New Glenn into action in that timeframe, it's going to dominate the upmass market in the US, at the very least.

 

[DanM]

Are there any reusable launchers being proposed other than SpaceX's ITS? I know they're also considering landing the F9 second stage but AFAIK that's still a long shot.

 

[Pipcard]

Are there any reusable launchers being proposed other than SpaceX's ITS? I know they're also considering landing the F9 second stage but AFAIK that's still a long shot.

Blue Origin's New Glenn (eventually; this is implied by "initially expendable upper stages") and probably New Armstrong (although the latter is just a name for now)

 

[Pipcard]

Reminder: This poll closes in 5 days.

 

[Pipcard]

Thank you for participating in this survey. This survey was also conducted on the forums for NASASpaceflight.com and Kerbal Space Program. A table and pie charts of the results are shown below.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Interesting to see the different attitudes across the various forums... And also interesting that the largest section of each is the partial reuse.

 

[Pipcard]

Interesting to see the different attitudes across the various forums... And also interesting that the largest section of each is the partial reuse.

On NASASpaceflight, a majority of the voters believe in full reusability if you combine all those options (that's why they're various shades of blue).

 

[Urwumpe]

On NASASpaceflight, a majority of the voters believe in full reusability if you combine all those options.

Yes, but more interesting would be to see in some years: Which forum made the better prediction? :lol: