re dc x vehicle nears flight test nsmca aurora alaska edu writes excellent discussion of dc x landing techniques by henry deleted since the dc x is to take off horizontal why not land that way the dc x will not take of horizontally it takes of vertically why do the martian landing thing for several reasons vertical landings don t require miles of runway and limit noise pollution they don t require wheels or wings just turn on the engines and touch down of course as henry pointed out vetical landings aren t quite that simple or am i missing something don t know to much about dc x and such overly obvious well to be blunt yes but at least you re learning why not just fall to earth like the russian crafts parachute in then the soyuz vehicles use parachutes for the descent and then fire small rockets just before they hit the ground parachutes are however not especially practical if you want to reuse something without much effort the landings are also not very comfortable however in the words of georgy grechko i prefer to have bruises not to sink josh hopkins jbh uxa cso uiuc edu tout ce qu un homme est capable d imaginer d autres hommes seront capable de la realiser jules verne
