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[Lyn Farel]

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/elon-musk-spacex-look-really-hard-land-rocket-boat-ok/?mbid=social_fb

I have to admit, I find those attempts rather entertaining. 

All in all though, very interesting, I hope they continue to slowly go towards more and more success.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

That website delivered. Not only is Elon Musk still trying to use a rocket to sink a boat the really hard way, but there was an article on using decomissioned aircraft carriers as a bridge substitute.

I suppose the US is going to have a bunch of them if they ramp down their military budget, but still. Is this cost-effective? Or sane?

[Jace]

Americans don't believe in the concept of cost effective.

[kalaratiri]

Americans don't believe in the concept of cost effective.

Why be cost effective when you can be AWESOME?

[Jace]

Americans don't believe in the concept of cost effective.

Why be cost effective when you can be AWESOME?

Bling bling is worth all the ching ching.

[Morwen Lagann]

In fairness, if they get it right, it will be pretty cost-effective. The whole point is making the booster recoverable and limiting the damage it would normally take through a regular splashdown like the boosters for the Shuttle used to use.

[Saede Riordan]

So close!

[Silas Vitalia]

That we have collectively as a species even figured out how to fling things fast enough to get into space should still be shouted from the rooftops on a daily basis.

People see a thing and forget how ridiculously, incredibly, gut punchingly difficult it is to do.

[Vikarion]

That we have collectively as a species even figured out how to fling things fast enough to get into space should still be shouted from the rooftops on a daily basis.

People see a thing and forget how ridiculously, incredibly, gut punchingly difficult it is to do.

Amen.

[Silas Vitalia]

Since we are on the subject, if anyone is bored the in my opinion definitive history of space flight is a book called "This New Ocean"

750 pages, an exhaustive history from the very beginning (going back hundreds of years) and based on over 175 interviews with the American, Russian, and German scientists involved in the modern era. 

An amazing (but can be dry) look at all of the personalities and technology, and how in a most basic sense most of our space progress is just a side product of convincing the military to let us use some of their extra doomsday rockets to attach scientific equipment to.

Fun fact, the US actually disassembled many of the leftover German V2 rockets and rebuilt them and used them in the American Southwest.  And yea also the guy who built the V2's raining down on London also built our moon program.

Fascinating stuff!

http://www.amazon.com/This-New-Ocean-Library-Paperbacks/dp/0375754857

[Iwan Terpalen]

Fun fact, the US actually disassembled many of the leftover German V2 rockets and rebuilt them and used them in the American Southwest.  And yea also the guy who built the V2's raining down on London also built our moon program.

"Once ze rockets go up,
Who cares where they come down?
That's not my department,"
Says Wernher von Braun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro

[Esna Pitoojee]

Second video, from the barge itself. Gives a really good view of the directional thrusters they use to control the thing.

I'd also like to point out that just because it exploded, doesn't mean that this isn't serious progress. The last rocket more or less went sideways into the barge; this one actually came down vertically onto the barge, just at a slight (but great enough) angle to damage one of the landing legs.

Nobody said it'd work fast. But we're getting there.

[Lyn Farel]

I wonder how they deal with the weather. Especially at sea with the wind...

[Saede Riordan]

As anyone whose played Kerbal Space Program knows, Space is Hard.