Short history of reusable rockets and spacecraft

A short, incomplete, history of reusable rockets and spacecraft, from Wernher von Braun’s ideas, to the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane, NASA’s Space Shuttle, the soviet Spiral, Buran and Baikal, NASA’s DC-X, JAXA’s RVT, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser.
Credits: NASA/Roscosmos/Мосфильм/JAXA/United States Air Force/Blue Origin/SpaceX/Sierra Nevada Corp
Music: Blue Danube by Strauss courtesy of YouTube Audio Library

[kpm]

So the soviets came up with the idea of landing a rocket vertically. Wow!

[michaeldunne]

Nice to see JAXA's RVT included - got to see a pretty good size model of it at the JAXA center in Sagamihara ... To bad Blue Origin's New Glenn hasn't been tested for an orbital flight yet ...

[amauryb.]

Hi!

You forgot a few things:

- The TKS Soviet spacecraft was reused (just like Dragon). One capsule was even reused three times!
- Energiya side blocks were also reusable. The big grays blocks on the side boosters contains the parachutes and the landing legs
- And also, let's not forget that Russian and USSR has recoverd, and partially reused more than 12 000 rocket stages.

[CausticLemons]

So many possibilities killed by politics, funding, and...not actually being possible. But still fun!

[Jrcraft]

A Gemini capsule was reused. a TKS capsule was reused. Dragon 1 & 2 were reusable, Starliner is aswell. Electron and Ariane 5 can recover boosters.

[Arae_]

And I'm just here like: "wen hop"

[KSPGalaxtic]

can you tell me when is the starships first flight?

[vasanthr]

Video is good but your wordings are not clearly visible ( unable to read)

[Goofyspacenerd]

Lol the dreamchaser never launched yet still

[kspencerian]

Good video. However, a common mistake on the last vehicle. You showed the Dream Chaser crew prototype that lost in the Commercial Crew contracts. It has no contract or customer right now. The Dream Chaser Cargo is a CRS2 contracted vehicle, looks notably different and should've been shown.

[johnroutledge]

Misses out a lot. Such a topic is very incomplete without talking about the road not taken, and how we had the tech to do this in the 1970s. And the various forms of political and bureaucratic idiocy that buried that technology and knowledge for 40 years.

[diegoantoniorosariopalomin]

Did you decide against including long March 8?

[Wheelo]

The plural of “spacecraft” is “spacecraft.” Good video thank you.

[yeyuan]

This idea is moronic, you lose some potential delta-V for a vehicle you will never re-use. It costs another one to re-furbish them, including falcons.

[originalmin]

No mention of Dragon, Crew Dragon, Starliner, Orion, Starship?