Elon Musk has some interesting plans for the landing of the upper stage of the two-stage Falcon 9 rocket and it involves a “giant party balloon.”
Musk tweeted Sunday about his plans for the upcoming landing. He started the series of tweets with the acknowledgment that “This is gonna sound crazy,” and then said, “SpaceX will try to bring rocket upper stage back from orbital velocity using a giant party balloon.” If that wasn’t crazy enough, he followed that tweet up with another zinger, suggesting that the rocket and party balloon will “land on a bouncy house.”
And then land on a bouncy house
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 16, 2018
Musk hasn’t provided any additional details on exactly what a “giant party balloon” might entail, but has said that the balloon would have a shape that allows it to withstand the supersonic descent back to Earth, Space.com reports.
Musk says that a giant balloon is “great for creating a giant object that retains its shape across all Mach regimes & drops ballistic coefficient by 2 orders of magnitude.”
No word on when the party balloon and bouncy house will officially be used.