SpaceX, successful again.

[maw lod qan]

I know their satellites are a mess, but SpaceX's success is amazing!

This was the 13th time this booster was used?

They have updated their life expectations of the boosters from 10 to 15 uses.

With the geniuses in NASA back in the old days could this have been possible if they had a different mindset, or is just the advances that have come with time?

[AstroKeith]

52 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

I know their satellites are a mess, but SpaceX's success is amazing!

This was the 13th time this booster was used?

They have updated their life expectations of the boosters from 10 to 15 uses.

With the geniuses in NASA back in the old days could this have been possible if they had a different mindset, or is just the advances that have come with time?

A good question. I think perhaps the biggest difference is the guidance systems that bring them back down. The computers in the 'old' days weren't capable of this. Materials technology has moved on of course too.

[tomato]

Yes, hand made ferrite core memory on the guidance system of the Saturn V, hats off to those guys, they were amazing.

And the project objectives were very different, get ‘em there and bring them back safe by the end of the decade, I don’t think sustainability got a mention.

[Carbon Brush]

Control circuits now vs early 1960s are a world apart.

Apollo 11 didn't have a colour TV camera on the surface.
One of the 60s moon survey probes (I forget which) took film photos of the moon's far side, then popped them through a developer tank.
The resulting film was later waved in front of an optical sensor and the picture transmitted (at low data rate) to earth.
A shirt button camera was the stuff of science fiction.

As for making an analogue (or digital) computer work reliably in temperature extremes and the high shock/vibration environment of a rocket stage......

 

 

[Paul M]

Space X are starting to make it look easy!

I'm still highly impressed with every booster landing I watch.

But none of it comes close to NASA's greatest successes, which in my view were the Apollo 11 and 13 missions.

Very honourable mention must go to Voyagers 1 and 2, the Grand Tours. I used to have Voyager images of the planets all over my bedroom wall.

OK there was one poster of Cheryl Ladd there too. No idea how that got there...