@elonmusk The chopsticks tower is one of the wildest engineering designs ever. Can't wait to see it catch Starship.
@lexfridman In theory, it saves landing leg mass & enables immediate reflight of an otherwise unwieldy, giant rocket
@lexfridman @elonmusk Why not design the “catch” item to look like the Eiffel Tower (ET) with a big circular hole at the top? ET = more stability. (1) Catch rocket (2) lower rocket onto pad (3) clean & attach nose (4) ET on wheels & separates (5) fire rocket. - ET more stable, cleaning faster.
@lexfridman @elonmusk Like can someone tell me what was the inspiration behind this. Literally a baseball game with rockets. Catch that popfly!
@lexfridman @elonmusk That's gonna be wild, can't wait to see that. 🚀🚀🚀
@lexfridman @elonmusk I feels there's something is missing from this catcher
@lexfridman @elonmusk Engineering historical trend equations usually indicate a weight fraction for landing gear at 1-2% of Gross Takeoff Weight, for reusable flight vehicles (aircraft). Payload fraction for orbital class launch vehicles historically comes in around 2-4%. That is huge.
@lexfridman @elonmusk Clearly a Mr Miyagi inspired design