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SpaceX is still the only company to land a real first-stage booster, and the Falcon Heavy was the largest rocket (in terms of payload capacity) to fly since the Saturn V.


false! The energia and the N-1 flow before and they was more powerful that the Falcon Heavy.


From the N-1's wikipedia page:

Each of the four attempts to launch an N1 failed; during the second launch attempt the N1 rocket crashed back onto its launch pad shortly after liftoff and exploded, resulting in one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions in human history.

Energia's a more interesting comparison, since it's hard to know if its advertised payload was at all accurate, but it did fly. I'd say that if it could have delivered its advertised payload reliably, the design probably would have flown more than twice and would have survived the fall of the Soviet Union. I have no idea what a half-finished Buran weighs...


Did the N-1 rocket really "fly"?


It flew all the way to the scene of the crash.


Ah, the Chuck Yeager school of flying:

"If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing"


The N-1 never worked properly though. And even one of the two Energia launches was not without issues.




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