The other side of the Atlantic is way too far downrange to make sense landing there. Even Texas to Florida (~1400 km) is farther than ideal. Taking a wild guess I'd say stage separation would occur ~200 km downrange (that distance is from 3.5 km/s at 3 gee constant acceleration), so upon stage separation Texas is ~200 km away and Florida ~1200 km away.
The goal is to reduce cost based on re-usability. Clearly recovery at launch pad is best, so my question is how much of the cost savings will be lost by down range recovery if you have to transport back to launch site by some other mechanism?
Thanks for starting the thread.First question- is there any evidence whatsoever that points towards SpaceX considering down-range/ boost-forward recovery strategies?
Time for Elon to take a trip to Mexico to maybe negotiate a landing pad in Yucatan?
Maybe Musk should just buy the Western Sahara. Plenty of empty space downrange from there.
Time for my pet idea
IIRC, Elon mentioned somewhere that the second stage would go around once before coming back down.
Has anyone considered landing downrange on a SWATH style boat? That sort of boat is a cross between a catamaran and a semi-submersible oil rig. Its key feature is its stability moving quickly through rough seas. Here's a video showing a conventional boat pounding through rough seas (in foreground) and a smaller SWATH boat seemingly oblivious of the seas (in background):Here's some more info:http://www.yachtsilvercloud.com/SSC/PDF/Silver%20Cloud%20LR.PDFhttp://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/sea-slice.htmSWATH previously mentioned briefly here:http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30350.msg1005414#msg1005414Despite the stability of a SWATH platform it's probably not a good idea to leave the stage sitting unrestrained on the landing pad for the simple reason that the wind could easily blow it over. A 30 m/s wind gives a force of about:0.5 * (1.2 kg/m^3) * (30 m/s)^2 * 3.6 m * 40 m / (9.8 m/s^2) = 8 mt forceon the side of the stage. I dunno what the first stage mass is but the ~95% propellant ratio suggests a mass of around 15 mt. That's an uncomfortably large wind force compared to the stage mass. A 30 m/s wind is quite strong (58 knots), but I think that's a reasonable design value because wind speeds are often pretty strong at sea, gusts are stronger than sustained winds, and traveling home adds ~10 knots effective windspeed if home happens to be upwind of the landing spot.Having the stage blown over immediately after landing shouldn't be a problem because the boat can travel downwind to subtract from the effective windspeed. One possible solution to the wind problem would be to tie down the stage somehow after landing. Another possibility would be to have a transporter/erector bring it horizontal in a manner similar to how the rocket is brought horizontal at the pad after e.g. an engine test.Landing at sea would add few million dollars per year of costs to maintain the boat but that may be worth it if it reduces the reusability payload penalty sufficiently.