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Watch: SpaceX Dragon capsule breathes fire during crucial hover test

DuncanL

The issue I see is if they had to do an emergency escape and then land - you'd need enough fuel for both parts (rather than enough for an escape OR a landing).

And if the rockets failed for any reason, having no parachute at all would result in astronaut pancakes... Though I suppose at the point you would discover the thruster failure (a few hundred metres from the ground) it would be too late for a parachute to make any difference anyway.

Still; I'm sure many minds better than mine have considered all of this.

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