There was the DC-X program that tried to do mostly the same thing that SpaceX is doing here with this barge landing, but the DC-X never made the trip into orbit and only did pretty much what the Grasshopper did earlier. The DC-X was supposed to lead to a rocket that went into orbit and could be similarly reusable, but funding for that program was cut during the Reagan administration. Surprisingly, it is Blue Origin that purchased all of the IP rights to that technology and not SpaceX... but that is another story.

[citation needed]

Really, this is just utter troll talk here that shows you don't know what you are talking about. That SpaceX keeps pushing the envelope is true, but they've definitely delivered payloads to the desired location in orbit on multiple occasions, including 100% of the primary payloads on the Falcon 9. That they might have set some additional goals on each mission to go beyond the bare minimum expected and then fail on some minor point only goes to show that they aren't trying to stay safe either.

It should be pointed out that as the Falcon 1 1st stage empties out, even one engine burning at minimum throttle is still strong enough to provide positive lift to the whole stage. In other words, it simply must land with at least some fuel remaining in the tank as it would be ascending and not landing otherwise (unless the tank was dry, but that wouldn't be a landing). It definitely wasn't the fuel reserve that caused this problem.

The one clearly identified problem was that the grid fins stopped working due to a loss of hydraulic fluid to keep them operational at the end of the flight. I'm sure more will come up as the issues are found.

On the contrary. It is a requirement as per NASA contracts, but also standard practice in the rocket industry. It is called reserve fuel. Look it up. Every successful launcher that has put things into orbit has such a reserve fuel load that never gets used except in emergency conditions.

SpaceX is merely taking advantage of that reserve fuel after the 2nd stage has been lit up to be able to do something useful with the 1st stage. The engine-out capability is something that has been used by other rocket designers as well, including something Werner Von Braun used in his design of the Saturn V.... something that even made a couple Apollo flights successful that would have failed had that capability not been there.

You don't plan on using the reserve fuel in a nominal flight to boost performance. SpaceX did launch a geosynchronous orbit satellite that pushed the reserve fuel load to the point that testing of the 1st stage landing procedures didn't happen, but it still had the reserve fuel left in the 1st stage after stage separation. It was later said that SpaceX did test the landing process anyway on that flight, but it was rather low-key and didn't involve a hover test.

Was there a Shuttle landing strip at VAFB? An air strip that could bring the Shuttle on the 747 carrier certainly existed and was even used on a couple occasions (when the Enterprise showed up there for some fitting tests), but I don't think it was ever intended to land there.

On the other hand, Vandenberg was to be a launch site for polar launches with an emphasis on military payloads that never ended up being used with the Shuttle. I'm pretty sure any such landings were to happen at Edwards AFB, but I might be wrong on that issue.

The big change to the Shuttle was the cross-range requirement where it could potentially evade Soviet (at the time) tracking and be able to do a single orbit mission to put a military payload into orbit and land immediately after deployment. Such a flight would require significant turning since over the course of the mission a straight wing would have put the Shuttle over the middle of the Pacific Ocean (when launched from Vandenberg). Again, no such mission ever actually happened, but it was one of the things that adversely impacted the shuttle design since it was designed to fly such a mission.

The extra fuel was in the tank anyway as reserve fuel. The only reason why it was jettisoned before full orbit had to do with trying to keep it from cluttering up LEO with more space debris, so hanging onto the tank would have been trivial by comparison. It would have required a slight design change in the tank construction to make it useful though, and likely some in-orbit construction in order to make the tanks useful on a practical level, but neither the fuel nor applications were a problem. It was mainly an issue of getting a very conservative thinking congress (on space issues) to agree to funding any mission that would use the tank.

At this point, it is a moot idea since the Shuttle program is no more, but it was an interesting idea that could have been utilizing a resource that otherwise was discarded.

There is such a test range. It is called "Spaceport America", the same place where Virgin Galactic is doing their test flights and planning on providing regular service for the Spaceship Two. In this case, SpaceX is using the facility for a vertical launch due to the high altitude flight restrictions of the area (in part due to the White Sands Missile Range next to this spaceport in New Mexico). It isn't to get the rocket to orbit, but they do plan on testing landing procedures in a repeated fashion and in a way that doesn't tie up the Florida launch site either.

SpaceX has also done some extensive testing at their McGregor, Texas facility where they perform primarily the engine tests. You can see these tests on YouTube, including watching the cows go into a panic with the rocket sounds on a nearby ranch. The problem with the Texas facility is that the FAA hasn't given SpaceX the clearance they need to test at higher altitudes...which is why they are moving the tests to New Mexico.

More tests are planned this year, so expect to see some more posts about the vehicle in coming months. This particular test done today happened mainly because they were going to ditch the stage in the ocean otherwise, so they might as well try to get some engineering data to help refine the process under full flight conditions. SpaceX has been using this strategy as well for the past several launches, including some tests that had the rocket hover over the ocean prior to engine shutdown.

It would be hugely valuable if simply some engines were recovered in some form at all, and send to McGregor for disassembly and engineering review. In other words, if just one engine landed on the deck in a couple of salvageable pieces (not even flight worthy.... just enough to examine), it will still be a valuable exercise.

It is now looking like SpaceX underestimated the amount of hydraulic fluid needed to keep the grid fins operational at the end of the flight. A small detail sort of like the nut that destroyed Falcon 1 Flight 1 as well as some of the other early Falcon 1 flights that had other correctable but significant flaws that kept the flight from being perfect.

Specifically it was the hydraulics on the grid fins that ran out of fluid about a half minute before landing. It will be a few days before more details come out about the position of those fins and how those final seconds might have been impacted, but some attitude control was likely lost along with some braking force as the grid fins do provide some additional drag that might not have been compensated for when that hydraulic system drop out of active control.

It has been said that the rocket hit landed hard.... whatever that might actually mean in terms of velocity.

The prices did drop to less than 5% of what he was originally charging. Actually more like less than 1% of the original prices.

I think you can put that on a single digit. The Soyuz spacecraft can basically return the three member crew and essentially a postage stamp. Well, it is about a hundred pounds of extra baggage, but essentially nothing on a practical level. The Dragon spacecraft really is the only vehicle currently in active use that has this capability at all.

Yes, Russia obviously has the capability and even flew the Buran spacecraft that had some capability of returning stuff from orbit. The Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft has the same return capabilities of the Soyuz (basically nothing) although I have no doubt that if China needed the capability they could make it. There is also the X-37 spacecraft that the USAF has been playing with that may or may not have actually brought stuff back from orbit. It also should go without saying that the Boeing CST-100 as well as the Orion capsule should also be capable of returning more substantial amounts of cargo from space (Boeing is even trying to muscle their way into the next round of the commercial cargo resupply flights). ESA has never had a return cargo capability of any kind, nor has Japan even though I don't doubt either "country" (is the EU a country?) could put up such a spacecraft if they cared. Both Japan and ESA have sent cargo flights to the ISS though.

I'm suggesting that some of the methods that SpaceX has employed to reduce costs of their rocket in terms of applying mass production techniques and treating the manufacturing of rockets more like how automobiles are manufactured on an assembly line has made a huge impact in terms of the cost of a launch. They are currently manufacturing more than a couple Merlin 1-D engines each week and plan to ramp up that production rate to even higher levels. They have also streamlined a number of things in the vehicle design to drop prices considerably including using consumer grade electronics instead of mil-spec equipment (using redundancy instead to achieve higher reliability) and several other innovations to really drop costs that haven't been used earlier.

That is the cake I'm talking about which other companies haven't been able to achieve... for various reasons. The Merlin 1-D engines aren't the highest performing engines and definitely have some strong limitations, but they are very cheap to manufacture. The same goes for the body of the rocket and other parts too. The vertical integration of SpaceX has also helped in terms of keeping the supply chain tight and keeping costs under control.

I also question how much actual savings will happen with reuse as there are definitely fixed costs that really limit how much it can reduce costs. 1st stage reuse at best only saves about half of the cost.... when done over the course of nearly 20-30 launches for amortization and assuming even low fixed costs. That still is useful and can make SpaceX very competitive, but it isn't nearly the earth shattering cost reduction that some are suggesting. SpaceX isn't even talking much any more about 2nd stage reuse, and all of the contracts using the Dragon spacecraft currently require a new capsule on every launch.

In other words, SpaceX really can't be depending on reuse for profit and instead must depend on other ways to cut costs in order to survive as a company while charging so little to the end customers. Admittedly, SpaceX officials have quoted a price point of $7 million per launch of the Falcon 9 to deliver 10 metric tons to LEO as something they are aiming at (mentioned at a satellite conference in Indonesia last year with commentary by other launch providers simply saying SpaceX is quoting nonsense). That is about 1/10th of the price currently, but I would assume that includes more than just reuse savings.

SpaceX is making a profit off of their expendable rocket program.... and beating the Chinese Space Agency on a cost per kilogram into orbit even doing just that. Mind you, the main way that SpaceX is going to try to get launch prices cheaper is simply to reuse the first stage by flying it back to the launch pad... something that won't ever make the trip into space anyway. Most of the fuel that the stage will be firing is the reserve fuel that normally isn't used in a nominal flight but will be used in an attempt to recover the stage after it has accomplished the primary task of sending the rest of the rocket to a point it can get into orbit and space.

Another difference between what SpaceX is doing and previous attempts is that they are doing it incrementally instead of all at once (a huge problem for Rotary Rocket as well as the DC-X and arguably even the Space Shuttle) and it isn't being done with tax dollars but rather with private R&D spending. They don't depend upon a vague and indifferent Congress to decide if funding for the R&D program will continue or not. No NASA money is being spent on the reusable engine program but instead is simply minor testing after the revenue portion of the flight has already happened.

We will see next month (or this month... depending on when you read this) how successful SpaceX will actually be with the concept, since they are attempting to capture and successfully land the first stage as a part of the next launch. If it was power point presentations still, your argument that this is bullshit would be justified. Bent hardware currently sitting on a launch pad (SLC-40) in Florida awaiting FAA-AST approval for launch doesn't sound like bullshit to me. I think SpaceX is in slightly better shape than you think.

More important, what Elon Musk has provided for spaceflight is a huge reduction in cost that can be measured as dollars per kilogram to orbit. The Space Shuttle typically got somewhere in the range of about $20k-$40k/kg to LEO (depending on how you calculated the cost of launching a shuttle.... getting the order of magnitude on that number is dubious at best and no two independent sources give the same number). Typical in the launch industry is about $10k/kg as a general rule of thumb (if you can get cheaper... it is likely a good price for a launch). SpaceX on the other hand has a posted price for a Falcon 9 (no frills or extras where the customer has to do everything else once they get into orbit) of about $60 million per launch. @10,000 kilograms for the payload capacity of that rocket (officially rated for about 15 MT, but I'm being generous here and deliberately low-balling the price) that gives you a price of $6k/kg.

In other words, the bottom line really does matter, and SpaceX is extremely competitive and cost effective for getting into space.

The value of SpaceX as a corporation would largely be due to the nearly cult-like personality of Elon Musk and a whole bunch of people trying to get a piece of the action that he is doing with the company, not so much what is on the books for launch contracts.... which would barely be about $2 billion (being generous including NASA and DOD/intelligence contracts that are a matter of public record). They only had six launches this year (still pretty good), and being very generous with $100 million per launch that means they only had a revenue stream of just a little over a half billion this year and a huge amount of spending that they've done too. That isn't profit, just revenue in an industry with a fairly tight profit margin and SpaceX being the discount competitor still trying to get customers by offering steeply lower prices.

Mind you, the future of the company does indeed look bright and accounting practices do include future launches in terms of company profits, but a couple of bad launches like what happened to Orbital or Sea Launch could spell disaster to the company and really cause the value of the company to drop considerably and even cause customers to flee. I wish SpaceX all the best and I hope they can continue their success with future flights, but nothing is guaranteed in this industry. It is after all called rocket science.