This landing butt-first technique is crucial to saving money, mostly for later models of rocket. Musk’s goal is recycling a much heavier booster for Mars missions. SpaceX changed its engine development for the next-gen Merlin from RP-1 to methane, because RP-1 isn’t available on Mars, but methane is. Mars also has no infrastructure, so perfecting the fin-tip landing will pay off when the colony ships start going to Mars — they’ll be oriented for launch, merely requiring refueling from local resources. In order to perfect this technique, they have to practice it until they can stick the landing every single time. So far they’ve only tried it twice or three times, and scrubbed it for their previous launch for some reason or other.
It’s remarkable that SpaceX has gone from a glint in his eye to the state it’s in today, but each time they hit some milestone believed to be difficult at best, it shows what singleminded, intelligent leadership can do in a company. I was among those who shook heads when the early launches from some flyspeck Pacific island had to be scrubbed, or the rockets exploded and whatnot. The company has been around 12 years, as in *only* 12 years. I was impressed back when Beal went from drawing board to the second-largest liquid-fueled engine in history in maybe five years, and in a way Beal’s experience helped pave the way for Musk et al, but it is a bit devil-may-care to doubt that Musk knows what he’s doing.
A couple years ago, an article about SpaceX recounted how, early on, they were going to subcontract for parts to the small aerospace feeder companies with deep experience. When those companies gave them quotes, they changed their minds. Then as the launch business slapped everyone around a bit, those feeder companies approached SpaceX with lower bids. “Oh, we went ahead and built it ourselves.” Buh-bye.
SpaceX is using engines fabricated on a 3D printer.
Plus it looked really cool in the old sci/fi movies from the 50's and 60's.
Sorry, couldn't resist and it's late :)
Except the ultimate goal needs to be not landing “butt-first” but on a normal airplane runway.