What goes up must come down and go up in flames.
The final, probably-explosion-filled seconds are missing from this Vine, but it's amazing nonetheless. This, in case it's not clear, is a rocket several stories tall returning from space and attempting to land vertically on a drone ship in the ocean. It's not quite as jaw-droppingly thrilling as SpaceX's last almost-landing (which nearly took out the camera filming it), but seeing what we had been told was impossible all through the 20th century suddenly become clearly-possible-but-just-not-
Ok, looks like we got some killer footage from the chase plane. Big ocean, small ship. Posting vid shortly pic.twitter.com/2F5FK0TZ0i
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2015
Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing pic.twitter.com/eJWzN6KSJa
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2015
This is by far the closest SpaceX (or anyone else) has come to success in vertically landing a rocket after sending it into orbit. If they succeed, going to space will become much cheaper. So, you know, like available to the whole top 1%, instead of the top .1% or the top .01% where it is today.
If this works, I'm treating myself to a volcano lair. It's time.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2015