SpaceX does it–landing its rocket safely onto a sea platform

Congratulations SpaceX and Elon Musk. It was simply a matter of time before a successful recovery of the Falcon 9 booster on a sea platform happened. Today it happened and it is something future generations will recognise as an important milestone in the dawning of the space age. January this year it almost happened, they almost recovered the rocket but it tipped over after touchdown and duly exploded to smithereens. So it was just a matter of tweaking the process. The implications of this success can potentially cut the cost of sending things to space by 30% according to the President of SpaceX.

Here is the math I lifted from The Verge website (click here to read their article on this breakthrough). It cost about $60 million to build the Falcon 9. The fuel cost is $200,000. A 30% savings would mean bringing the rocket back to the launch pad can be $20 million less, a considerable savings! This heralds a bright future for space entrepreneurship.

This is the second successful landing of the SpaceX rocket. The first one was in december, it was on a land platform. However landing on a grounded platform does not provide the cost savings as much as a sea landing does even if a sea landing is more tricky with its wobble. To find out why read The Verge article link above.

With this success SpaceX can notch up its credentials over public outer space enterprises. For decades space agencies were the domain of governments, meaning so long as the agencies could provide political mileage for government leaders money was not really an issue. So the drive to create technology to cut cost simply didn't matter. For a future in space we need the profit incentive, nothing drives innovation like profit. So congratulations SpaceX. Now I wonder when SpaceX is going to build its own space station, that would be the next breakthrough–a privately owned space platform. For young people who are interested in aerospace, go for it your future is bright.