I Don’t Need These Russians 131
module will make it possible for the astronauts to fly away
from the rest of the rocket. It will probably save the crew.
An often-used argument in favor of the Space Shuttle
was that it could land wherever you wanted it to land as
long as the runway was long enough. The other alternative,
a capsule, will just fall into the ocean and then the navy has
to search for it with aircraft carriers. But it’s a misconcep-
tion. A capsule returning from space with a parachute can
steer on the way down since the capsule itself has similar
properties as a wing. Years before GPS became available,
latter capsules from the Apollo program could land within
a circle with a radius of 1 mile [2 km]. When you land a
capsule, the only factor you can’t control is the wind. To
correct for the wind, it’s possible to add a different type of
parachute or a propeller. Now you can land with a capsule
on the painted numbers on a runway in a similar way as
when a skydiver can land with a high accuracy.^350
SpaceX’s long-term goal is to land on other planets,
such as Mars, thus there’s no point with the Space Shuttle’s
wings since there are no runways on Mars. “In space,
wings are dumb. You don’t make an aircraft looking like a
boat,” Elon said.^350 Despite having wings, the Space Shuttle
couldn’t really fly. It could only fall with style. When it
returned from space, it glided towards the runway without
any engines, so it had only one chance to land.
Yet another drawback with the Space Shuttle is that it
was designed to be reusable, but in reality, it wasn’t. After
each launch, the external tank broke up before impact in
the sea and was never recovered. The reusable parts were