Honda successfully launched and landed its own reusable rocket
Honda Conducts Successful Launch and Landing Test of Experimental Reusable Rocket | Honda Global Corporate Website
It seems crazy that a company that's only really known for cars, motorbikes, tuning forks, heat pumps, brake pads, pens, tractors, fertilizer, display panels, outboard motors, pneumatic systems, oil tankers, furniture, locomotives, bricks, solar panels, ATVs, generators, hot air balloons, dinghies, hydrogen fuel cells, submarines, crop dusters, jet engines, cultivators, hedge trimmers, lawnmowers, precision optics and robots would suddenly pivot to rockets.
It's almost like they're an engineering company.
Crazy, right?
Isn't that Yamaha? Or is Honda the same?
Mitsubishi too
Yamaha is definitely in tune with the music. I never remember which is which, but their logo is tuning forks and depending on the product the tuning forks can extend past the circle. I think their motorcycles have it extending past.
It says Honda right on the side of the engine.
No, that's Nintendo
To be fair to Honda, they are doing what is expected of any companies in a capitalist system, actually innovate and diversify in order to remain competitive. Most other companies would rather stick to their traditional products and services, even if those products and services are written on the wall that they are becoming obsolete.
Incredible. What a great comment.
The impressive part is that they are also known for being reliable, there are the occasional issues, but overall very trustworthy products.
Like how the 2018-2021 Honda Civics shipped with non functioning AC because they used the wrong type of refrigerant? They’ve also trained dealerships to deny the warranty!
It’s been in the 90s all week - I risk heat stroke in my fucking car going to work!
Also a very capable downhill bike that was using a gearbox well before it got popular
It's actually interesting how similar rockets and jet engines are. You could think of a rocket as a jet (or sometimes two jet engines) where the afterburner is always on and the air intake is replaced by an O2 tank..
a rocket is a wingless airplane IMO
Edit: with oxygen tanks, as you said.
Honda built a rocket
Me: of course they did.
They launched the rocket
Me: naturally.
They landed the rocket.
Me: on the first try?
Unfortunately, the next competitor will be Amazon...
And then we'll see what happens next, getting a whole constellation up is no small feat, I can't see a third company getting a system working before 2050.
Also with starlink even one company's constellation is causing issues with astronomers and launches.
How bad will it be if there are 5-6 different companies with their own network floating around up there. And then other countries with their own network.
I know Blue Horizon or whatever it's called has had minor success with rockets. What's stopping Honda from out-competing them? Could it be a funding problem? (I know Blue Horizon has a lot of Amazon funding)
The satellite constellation is the natural consequence of cheaper rockets. It's a true paradigm shift, but the pioneer in this case has only the moat of being able to spend less money per launch. If someone else can deliver payloads to low earth orbit for less than $2,000/kg, then they'll easily be able to launch a Starlink competitor.
I hope they crush SpaceX one day.
By landing on them.
My buddy’s 2 million mile ‘95 civic says this is a sure bet
This wasn't much more than a toy rocket:
6.3 m in length, 85 cm in diameter,
The test was completed successfully, the first time Honda landed a rocket after reaching an altitude of nearly 300 meters.
But still they were successful on their first try, so we will have to see where they take it from here. 🚀
It's proof of tech. It'd be stupid and wasteful to do all the tests on a full size rocket.
There’s a YouTube channel called BPS Space where this guy spent 7 years learning how to land a model rocket space x style. He talked about how much you can learn about real rocket science even from a small model.
You mean like Starship?
Whatever they tested it's probably proof of that, but such a small rocket and only 300 meters means that a lot of things were not really proven, because scale is a HUGE issue.
Just ask Elon Musk / SpaceX, the Falcon rocket is fine, but Starship is horrible. And the difference is scale.
Since when is Honda a rocket company? This is literally the first im hearing about this. They kept this quiet for a while, and im not sure why.
Well they have been making crotch rockets for a long time.
isn't that Hitachi?
It's new. Honda Space Development Division.
Honda R&D to Conduct Testing with Sierra Space and Tec-Masters on the International Space Station | Honda Global Corporate Website https://share.google/3CwIsYUh8eWsohht4
A lot of the global conglomerate Asian based companies do R&D across many fields, rather than just the product they're most know for. Toshiba makes nuclear reactors! Samsung has phones and sewing machines and microchips.... and nuclear reactors research.
Good for them, Asia is getting their rocket programs in order while the U.S. tries their best to destroy ours. Man i wish I could move.
Of all the manufacturing companies, I would expect nothing less from Honda.
An alternative to.space junk clogging up the sky would indeed be nice.
It sounds like he's asking for more space junk.
Well this wouldn't be that. It would be a competitor to space junk, so increase the number of satellites in orbit by say 25%.
An alternative to anything related to Elon would be great.
Yeah, they could have a product ready by 2045! (If they hurry and make it a priority)
The all new Honda space Odyssey! It has a great V6 rocket engine with a 6000 million mile timing belt. After that you can buy one at amazon but it lasts 4 miles or 6 minutes.
Honda is cool they build robotics and the best motorbikes in the world per cost
other motorbike, mix up at the factory, enjoy your rocket
I wonder how it feels when VTEC kicks in on a literal rocket
And Hyundai is making hydrogen powered tanks, what a world. I wonder if hydrogen fuels poses any unique risks as compared to petrol.
I wonder if hydrogen fuels poses any unique risks as compared to petrol.
It's highly explosive.
Well, they're DEVELOPING them. They're not MAKING them yet.
If it had vtech and a fart cannon it would have hit 600m.
rather the opposite i'd say ... ready for take-off.
Honda giving a whole new meaning to crotch rocket.
Oh wait, it's an actual rocket!
Genuinely curious: how many explosions before the successful test?
Apparently they got it right on the first try.
Now that's the real win.
I wanna buy one and see what it can do with an old 4 cylinder VTEC out of a Civic Si.
TIL that honda has its own web domain
TLD*
But yes, same here.
What the F is every corporation's boner with rockets? 🚀
Because the last stage of existence on this planet. Will be febel plans to try and colonize other planets. Because our planet will start to poison us as a defensive mechanism. All of these Corporations need a plan to get off planet.
Imo it's a good thing tho. Spreading our civilization across multiple planets is the only way to guarantee long long term success. Obviously we should also fix the climate change issue (and many others). But still, being spread across the solar system would give our species redundancy. An extinction event on earth like a large meteor strike would no longer be the end.
It would take a lot to make Mars more habitable than Earth. This isn't about colonisation this is simply that it's cool to build rockets.
Feeble? But I think you meant futile? Idk.
The planet isn't doing anything, we are poisoning ourselves. Or as lemmy puts it "big evil corporations (which we support everyday because it's cheaper than buying local/sustainable) are poisoning us".
Yes, let spend money to fuck up other planets as well instead of saving this one. /s
Reusable rockets, in particular.
Imagine having a reusable car in a world where they were all disposable.
Flying Honda Accord confirmed.
The Top Gear Reliant Robin launch reached 3000ft / 900m, although they were unable to stick the landing.
How many went kaboom before this?
Idk, looks more like Hitachi
Not just for hard drives anymore.
What an ad. This is the second greatest YT video ever made.
This is the first I have heard they were doing this. Makes spacex accomplishments less impressive. Fuck elon
I imagine they poached a lot of Spacex engineers by simply telling them “we won’t make you work ungodly hours, nor will we subject you to a narcissistic manchild with no engineering education dropping in on your meetings and trying to tell you how to do your job”
You do realize it’s Japan right? China, Japan, Korea all have work life balance issues.i wouldn’t want to work 996 or 007 lol
In Japan?
I bet they poached 0-3 engineers.
You left out the "but you have to learn Japanese and move to Japan" part of the job pitch. That makes it a harder sell for most people.
Tbf doesn’t he have a computer science degree? Which is a type of engineering degree?
Well, Honda is actually a competent company.
Hell yes. Any competition to musk is very much needed.
Go Honda.
Eh, it's just a start of development. It only goes 300 meters. Blue Origin goes higher, but even they aren't in orbit.
Japan also has some odd limitations on their rockets as part of their self defense only constitution. They don't build a rocket that could potentially be used to strike mainland Asia.
https://youtu.be/UZaIs6oSlOI
I know you’re likely referring to New Shepard but Blue Origin did make it to orbit with New Glenn
Something something the first 300 meters are the hardest...
Also, if you look at the pictures, it's not a very big rocket.
Um, no it doesn't... At all...
This is a first step landing test, not even suborbital, it flew to a height of 300 meters. This is the point that SpaceX was at in 2011 with their grasshopper rocket.
SpaceX is regularly landing orbital hardware and working on a fully reusable rocket with a greater lifting capacity than anything else ever. It's not really the same...
But fuck Elon, no argument there.
well Honda did this a decade later so there still is some achievement spacex has done 🤷
Up and down isn't a hard problem in the grand scheme of things. It's expensive and doesn't offer much benefit which is why people generally haven't bothered.
Going up and over at orbital velocities and coming back is the hard part, and none of these new spaces companies have done that successfully yet, and SpaceX has now done it with 2 vehicles and reused them both.
New Glenn from Blue Orgin might be the first after SpaceX but it blew up coming back on their first attempt, but it's been designed to be orbital and reusable
You have it the wrong way round. SpaceX's accomplishments are impressive despite Elon.
How does it make spaceX’s accomplishments less impressive? SpaceX pioneered it. Space X did it first, with a significantly bigger rocket and at a significantly higher altitude. Honda no doubt achieved this by looking at what spacex did and how they did it and copying it.
This actually makes spaceX’s accomplishments look even more impressive.
To be fair, they must've learned from the recent spacex accomplishments.
probably
no one in the private sector was gonna take that kind of risk for a while and then SpaceX took the gamble, won and now tons of players see vertical landing of rockets works so their all looking into it.