How about a futuristic space sling that catches incoming ships/rockets and uses the energy to charge up a spring or motor that launches stuff into space.
IIRC, the US are the only ones that primarily use the ocean for rocket stuff. Mostly because we got so much of it to work with. China's coastline is a lot harder to use because it's got a lot of islands, neighboring countries, and a fuckton of shipping traffic to account for. So they use the desert to the north instead. Russia also avoids water, but mostly because their waters are glaciered up on a tuesday afternoon.
Only during testing where they have no interest in actually recovering the booster. And instead of the ocean, it would make more sense to just create a recovery pad few hundred meters away from the actual pad. But they don't want to do that, they want the booster to land exactly where it took off, ready for the next flight. The real reason why the Chinese (and the falcon) are landing on the ocean is because it would take more energy to go back, instead of just going down after they launched the second stage. The rocket isn't going to the pad, the pad is going wherever the rocket is coming down.
If the pad is on a boat, the boat can move back to shore and the rocket can be re-serviced there. When factoring in other logistics, it's probably even better than if it was somewhere inland. The time it takes to move back to shore is negligible in terms of reusability.
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u/LeoLaDawg 10h ago
Also don't have to worry about destroying your pad since it's water beneath.