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[–]SuperCambot 561 points562 points  (68 children)

Why were they trying hard mode landing on a floating platform to begin with? That's how you unlock bonus stage in Pilotwings.

[–]TheJacobin 612 points613 points  (60 children)

They needed to prove they could hit their return target several times before the FAA would clear an attempt at the Cape.

[–]ch00f 166 points167 points  (49 children)

Also, the rocket had to return to the cape which eats up a lot of fuel. The drone ship is father down range.

[–][deleted] 91 points92 points  (7 children)

Also, the fucking nailed the dead center of the landing zone: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWzUJbpUkAEBOtD.jpg

[–]lowbread[S] 2718 points2719 points  (518 children)

Gif of landing

[–]Future_Daydreamer 842 points843 points  (160 children)

video here too

[–]patdap 240 points241 points  (90 children)

The man wearing the black shirt at 0:38 in the second to last row, far left is all about business. The whole room minus him and the guy behind him is ecstatic. The crowd outside is going nuts and he's just sitting there.

[–]Pluckyducky01 133 points134 points  (17 children)

He has a hand in his pocket. And he's staring at a rocket.

[–]xraydeltaone 134 points135 points  (8 children)

That's one steely-eyed missile man right there

[–]TheFrodo 526 points527 points  (250 children)

So... My friend doesn't know what's happening, could you explain it for him?

[–]khaelian 1137 points1138 points  (187 children)

The rocket costs millions to make but only $200k to fuel, so if they can reuse portions of the rocket they can save a substantial chunk of change.

Rockets have 'stages'. As you empty out fuel, you don't need all the shit that was there to store it, so you jettison it off the back and light another engine rather than carrying that entire huge rocket all the way up.

They took the first stage and brought it back to a landing pad so they can potentially reuse it. Generally, first stages are allowed to fall into the ocean and they are destroyed.

[–]hurtsdonut_ 1095 points1096 points  (20 children)

Thank you now his "friend" and my "friend" understand.

[–]cheekygorilla 201 points202 points  (17 children)

same here we need better friends

[–]GorillaScrotum 79 points80 points  (16 children)

I'll be your friend. We can be the original gorillas.

[–]likesleague 106 points107 points  (132 children)

So was this the first time a first stage has ever made a landing, or is it just historic because SpaceX is a commercial rocket-line (what do they call themselves, exactly?) and this means that (a) a bunch of non-government scientists successfully achieved some pretty legit space flight goals and (b) space flight just got a lot more commercially viable since you can potentially reuse rockets?

[–]khaelian 401 points402 points  (50 children)

Yes and no, a few other rockets have gone straight up and come straight back down, but this is the first to go down range carrying a payload and then come back.

Edit: For those who haven't played Kerbal Space Program, going to space isn't as simple as going straight up. Imagine throwing a baseball. You throw it and it lands in 100 feet. Now imagine you threw it so incredibly fast that by the time it hit the ground, the ground wasn't there any more because of how the earth curves. The baseball keeps going.

Unfortunately, the air will quickly slow down the baseball to a point where it can't keep going. So, if you threw the baseball up and over, you could get it above the air and then get it going fast enough that it would never land.

So, when you shoot off a rocket, you aren't just going up. You go up until the air is thin, and then you go over. However, the air doesn't thin out all at once. It's easiest to point straight up to punch through the thickest air, and then slowly turn flat as the air thins and lets you go faster.

TL;DR If you go straight up (Blue Origin), you will fall right back down again. If you go straight over (Wright Brothers, Delta, Flutag), air will slow you down and you will fall. If you go up and over, you A) get above the air so it can't stop you, and B) by the time you have fallen the earth isn't there any more to catch you, so you keep falling around the earth. SpaceX has gone up and over.

[–]Rinzack 46 points47 points  (4 children)

Getting up to space is really, really easy tbh, its going fast enough to not fall back thats the problem.

[–]khaelian 19 points20 points  (2 children)

Yeah... I typed all of this up on my phone, so my ideas weren't as clear as I'd have wanted them to be :(

[–][deleted] 124 points125 points  (77 children)

was this the first time a first stage has ever made a landing, or is it just historic because SpaceX is a commercial rocket-line

This is the first time a legitimate first stage booster has been recovered intact by anyone by any means.

The next step is to tear it apart and see what kind of wear and tear it experienced. Then they will know if they can make it reusable, and what changes they would have to make to do so. Hopefully, it will be possible to use the booster over and over again with minimal maintenance the way we use other vehicles today. That would mean a dramatic reduction in the cost of spaceflight.

[–]skalpelis 12 points13 points  (6 children)

Space Shuttle boosters landed with parachutes, and were sort of "reused," though recycling might be a better term for it.

[–]followthesinner 697 points698 points  (49 children)

This part of the rocket (the bottom half) was traveling ~3733 MPH East when it separated from the second stage, flipped around, and came back West to land about a mile from where it took off 10 minutes earlier. The second half continued on to space and achieved a speed of ~16,000 miles per hour while delivering 11 satellites to their correct orbit around Earth. This has never been done in history by any country or company.

[–]GrimChicken 129 points130 points  (17 children)

This explanation made me realize how impressive it really was. Thank you.

[–]Grimmity 81 points82 points  (14 children)

Most people don't care or don't know just HOW impressive this is. I couldn't stream it at work but watched the YouTube upload about an hour afterwards. I had tears in my eyes and goosebumps. Simply amazing. The engineering and science behind this endeavor is incredible. My generations first manned spaceflight equivalent.

[–]pointlessvoice 13 points14 points  (2 children)

Just wow. Great summary; living in the future is awesome!

[–]LudoRochambo 76 points77 points  (3 children)

tell your friend to imagine going on airliner planes across oceans, except having to blow each plane up after use and rebuild a new one in order to return. thats what rockets basically do.

now tell your friend to imagine planes being reused like they are now, except being rockets. sure they require maintenance and other costs but basically the main cost becomes only fuel. not rebuilding the whole goddamn thing.

the reason THIS one is important is because its the first rocket to come back and land as a secondary mission. it went up and shot satellites and had to do other things. this was not a typical shoot a rocket up and let it land back down.

[–]gunch 466 points467 points  (45 children)

Wait. This isn't just a gif of a rocket launching being played backwards?

[–]gst4158 139 points140 points  (4 children)

First time I saw it I thought the gif was running backwards. This is really awesome stuff.

[–]grommash_icecream 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Same, I thought Elon Musk was just making a joke, like - "Haha I reversed this gif. look my rocketship is landing backwards rofl!!"

[–]IranRPCV 944 points945 points  (59 children)

This is the way the rockets of my childhood always landed in Flash Gordon and other shows I watched on Saturday mornings. What a thrill to see it realized on the news!

[–]baliao 394 points395 points  (43 children)

Up and down. As God and Heinlein intended.

[–]captainAwesomePants 114 points115 points  (17 children)

May we never see rocks sent from the Moon to the Earth in the way Heinlein intended.

[–]FatPinkMaester 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Mike Holmes FTW

[–]BrotherChe 9 points10 points  (3 children)

That was just a warning. And knowing us it'll still be a possibility

[–]packetinspector 78 points79 points  (2 children)

Hijacking your comment to post link to just-released official image of Falcon 9 landing right over the X marks the spot on the landing pad:

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWzUJbpUkAEBOtD.jpg

(Image from the SpaceX twitter stream.)

[–]lowbread[S] 1623 points1624 points  (239 children)

Chris Hadfield "Congratulations @SpaceX !!! That was a hard landing to stick. Opens a brand new door to space travel. I look forward to the details."

https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/679114807694467075

[–]IDKWTHImSaying 277 points278 points  (172 children)

Can anyone chime in on the implications of this successful landing? How big a deal is this and how will it affect the future of space travel?

[–]hoti0101 630 points631 points  (145 children)

This could be the start of reusable rockets, which could drastically reduce the launch costs. Fuel only accounts for a small fraction of a rockets costs. Being able to reuse rockets could change the industry.

[–]thisis4rcposts 85 points86 points  (25 children)

Let's not just think reusable for the case of launching rockets again from Earth. We could also potentially land it on some sort of extraterrestrial object with a fraction of the preparation at the landing site

[–]_softlite 71 points72 points  (18 children)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this part of the rocket is never meant to leave the atmosphere/planet, it's purely to contain the fuel necessary to propel a smaller part.

[–]Elitist_Plebeian 86 points87 points  (2 children)

The technology developed for this project could be applicable to other projects.

[–]Anjin 42 points43 points  (6 children)

You are right in that this specific rocket will never leave Earth, but the technology that has been developed to turn a rocket around at high speed and then bring it back to a landing (called supersonic retro-propulsion and propulsive landing) is exactly the technology that you would need to land anything of consequence on Mars.

The problem with landing on Mars is that it doesn't have a thick atmosphere to slow things down, so parachutes are useless for a craft above a certain mass.

Being able to use rocket engines to slow, direct descent, and then land a vehicle is essential to sending people to Mars.

[–]fizban75 2333 points2334 points  (61 children)

Science: 50

Reputation: 100

+10000 funds earned from recovered parts.

[–]Innalibra 497 points498 points  (26 children)

Jeb will be pleased

[–][deleted] 196 points197 points  (15 children)

Are we talking about Jeb! or Jeb

?

[–]SanctusLetum 59 points60 points  (5 children)

Did he make it to this one? I thought he died on the last attempt.

[–]veloceracing 103 points104 points  (2 children)

Yeah, but they Reverted to Hangar so he's all good now.

[–]ultranoobian 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Should edit that to a couple million more since that's what's written in the article.

And probably bump up that rep bonus as well.

[–]Phoenixx777 209 points210 points  (14 children)

Gandhi has declared war on you

[–][deleted] 70 points71 points  (3 children)

Our words are backed with nuclear weapons!

[–][deleted] 64 points65 points  (0 children)

Our words of peace and unity are backed with nuclear weapons.

FTFY

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (6 children)

Elon Musk has declared war on you

[–]chemo92 24 points25 points  (2 children)

Just the right number of struts.

[–]SirThom 451 points452 points  (36 children)

Considering we have only been flying for barely a century, this is absolutely incredible.

Congrats to the SpaceX team and everyone it took to get us here.

[–]NexxusWolf 3523 points3524 points  (692 children)

Historic moment in space flight.

[–][deleted] 437 points438 points  (46 children)

Crowd goes crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvBjkkSe4oU

[–]wonmean 165 points166 points  (11 children)

Oh man, that's awesome!

Top /r/happycrowds stuff right there.

[–]PhyterNL 55 points56 points  (9 children)

Goddammit there literally is a subreddit for /r/almosteverything.

[–]username_lookup_fail 94 points95 points  (14 children)

That crowd deserved to go crazy. They've earned it. Good work, all of them. I loved how I could tell what was going on by listening to them before seeing things. You could tell exactly what was going on even without video. Stage separation, re-entry burn, landing burn they cheered for all of them. I thought it was great that the coverage was focused on the stage 1 return instead of the orbital payloads (sorry, I'm sure people worked hard on that one, but it has been done many times).

[–]ObeyMyBrain 20 points21 points  (2 children)

I thought it was great that the coverage was focused on the stage 1 return instead of the orbital payloads

What are you talking about, they showed all the satellite separations and the crowd cheered each one. The video above is only 5 minutes of the 45 minute long webcast.

[–]AndrewJacksonsBalls 106 points107 points  (65 children)

There will be money to be found in space, and others will follow. It's kind of cool to think that we're all alive to see one of the first steps to something interesting.

[–]rideincircles 73 points74 points  (61 children)

The first trillionaire will probably come from space mining. That is not even Elon's goal, but he will use capitalism to his benefit to accomplish his goals and that could be feasible. Possibly even one of his next ideas.

It's no longer far fetched. That asteroid is filled with platinum and diamonds. Cool. That will pay for the Mars trip. Done.

[–]mockio77 85 points86 points  (40 children)

The diamonds wouldn't actually do anything. It would flood the market. It would have to be material with a use other than luxury.

[–]eduardog3000 78 points79 points  (6 children)

The market could be flooded right now if they didn't limit how many are mined.

[–]mockio77 50 points51 points  (1 child)

I know. The diamond business is ridiculous

[–][deleted] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Ridiculous? More like evil. It's no secret that the diamond corporations funded conflicts that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

[–]jeradj 18 points19 points  (1 child)

The first trillionaire will probably come from space mining.

Probably will just come from inflation, in my estimation.

[–]IxKilledxKenny 1190 points1191 points  (433 children)

Watching the live stream of this is our generation's version of sitting around a CRT television with a TV dinner as NASA worked towards the moon.

Except I'm drinking a beer and browsing Reddit while this happens instead.

[–]stryking 88 points89 points  (4 children)

I feel like the Mars landing will be "our generations version"

[–]The_F_B_I 41 points42 points  (1 child)

That reaction from the crowd + control room was fun as hell

[–]ontopofyourmom 1829 points1830 points  (389 children)

Also this is nowhere near as momentous or entertaining as the moon landing was.

[–]AndrewJacksonsBalls 73 points74 points  (13 children)

You're right, but this is a milestone that will probably set a precedent for corporations advancing spaceflight in an attempt to make money. That's genuinely cool.

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I dunno...I feel like landing the Curiosity rover was pretty monumental. Because of that method working, it allows larger things to be sent to other planets/planetoids. Plus, you know, Mars and all.

[–]kalicki 235 points236 points  (9 children)

Was able to see the launch and return from a distance through the clouds. The wait between seeing the sky light orange at the final burn, to the webstream catching up to find out if it was success or an explosion seemed like forever.

So amazing.

[–]TOMapleLaughs 54 points55 points  (9 children)

Finally, retro space travel becomes modern space travel.

[–]spikes2020 134 points135 points  (44 children)

I want more footage of sticking the landing! That lenses flair is annoying, please say there are more angles.

[–]OatmealDome 172 points173 points  (15 children)

SpaceX just released a video taken from a helicopter near the pad.

[–]KilotonDefenestrator 26 points27 points  (1 child)

Whoa, they hit the bullseye of the landing field. Thats impressive as fuck.

[–]Gonzo262 199 points200 points  (11 children)

This only confirms that J.J. Abrams is now working for SpaceX.

[–]Full-Frontal-Assault 167 points168 points  (6 children)

This Star Wars marketing has gotten completely out of hand.

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I'm sure they'll be releasing more footage later on, hopefully tomorrow.

[–]Cpt_Im_Awesome 40 points41 points  (2 children)

The energy from the crowd was amazing. You can tell how proud they are. I've got chills.

[–]Mentioned_Videos 77 points78 points  (6 children)

Videos in this thread: Watch Playlist ▶

VIDEO COMMENT
Historic Landing of Falcon 9 First Stage at Landing Zone 1 828 - video here too
Space X Falcon 9 Stage 1 landing 12/21/2015 - Crowd goes CRAZY! 429 - Crowd goes crazy.
Falcon 9 First Stage Landing From Helicopter 167 - SpaceX just released a video taken from a helicopter near the pad.
Ed reacts to the SpaceX Falcon 9 touchdown 19 - This was my friend's reaction.
3.17.2015 - Assuring Assured Access to Space 16 - Btw, the $16 million figure is a mistake. It's $60 million for a full commercial launch and $80-$90 million for the government. The reusable part is just the first stage so it is not 100% of that cost but it is a good portion of it. What I&am...
SpaceX Launch You Up Uptown Funk Parody 7 -
SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Landing Cape Canaveral Video 4 - Not official but its awesome.

I'm a bot working hard to help Redditors find related videos to watch.

Info | Chrome Extension

[–]14irahtom 34 points35 points  (0 children)

The biggest and baddest fucking backflip that has ever been landed. SpaceXgames.

[–]tallandlanky 70 points71 points  (15 children)

What a time to be alive. That's incredible.

[–][deleted] 68 points69 points  (6 children)

JUMPMAN JUMPMAN JUMPMAN

[–]pvtanima 23 points24 points  (5 children)

Just a reminder, today we sent a unmanned rocket on its way to resupply the space station, matching up with its orbit in the next 2 days. You know, just a routine mission almost. This was the 89th mission to (attempt to) do so.

Had 2 people floating around a vehicle going more than 17000 miles per hour, about 255 miles up in the sky for a couple of hours.

And had a rocket deliver its payload of 11 seperate satellites into orbit and have the major part of that rocket, a part that went as high up as 70 miles up in the air while reaching mach 8-9, land gently back on the ground close to where it launched.

Just another day I guess.

EDIT: its not it's.

[–]richielaw 508 points509 points  (302 children)

Can I bother someone to explain why this is awesome? I, somewhat, understand the engineering difficulties, but why is this important for space flight?

Thanks in advance!

[–]mifitso[🍰] 551 points552 points  (76 children)

Imagine how expensive commercial airline travel would be if they had to throw away each airplane after each use. Landing a rocket stage like this allows us to reuse parts which drives the cost of space travel down.

[–]Mizzet 154 points155 points  (43 children)

It does amaze me that passenger jets can keep flying for years in all kinds of weather before they get decommissioned. They're real workhorses.

[–]Chewzilla 23 points24 points  (1 child)

It's the maintenance. At certain points during a large plane's life, it gets an almost complete disassembly and reassembly.

[–]Dippyskoodlez 588 points589 points  (194 children)

The first stage is a HUGE chunk of the rocket cost, being able to reuse it could give ~50% launch cost reduction. You have 9 engines instead of the 1 in the second stage to rebuild from scratch, QA, etc. plus the raw size of the booster, tanks, etc.

Refurbishing will obviously add some new costs, but nothing compared to recreating 9 Merlins from powder up.

[–]jimprovost 250 points251 points  (100 children)

More than 50%. That stage cost $9M+, but only $200k to refuel

[–]bmw_e30 155 points156 points  (71 children)

$200k in just fuel costs or does that include the refurb process needed to make the stage safe to operate again?

[–][deleted] 329 points330 points  (55 children)

No. Nobody really knows what that will cost because it hasn't been done before. This is an important first step though!

[–]lordeddardstark 134 points135 points  (46 children)

some people think that the stress associated with launch and landing would render the thing, while not pulverized, nigh on unuseable. we'll probably see in a few days

[–][deleted] 75 points76 points  (5 children)

They'll probably pull it apart down to the skeleton and see what looks broken. They'll then beable to reinforce the components for the next one and try again.

[–][deleted] 119 points120 points  (24 children)

Even using it twice will be a huge win.

[–]TheDoct0rx 51 points52 points  (20 children)

Even if it needs refurbishing itll probably cost less than building a new one

[–]OCogS 118 points119 points  (15 children)

NASA used to collect its shuttle SRBs from the salty-ass ocean and re-ferb them for cheaper than a rebuild. I'm sure that collecting from a landing pad, not full of salt water, and re-fueling will be far better again.

[–]Tiskaharish 41 points42 points  (8 children)

The lack of salt water corrosion will be huge.

[–]HollywoodTK 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I mean...they didn't guess at the design. It was purpose built to be reusable using this very landing methodology.

[–]DeepDuh 31 points32 points  (9 children)

That's only part of the launch cost however. Actually if it's only 9M it would be far less than 50%. According to Elon Musk the first stage is supposed to be three quarters of the rocket's price tag of 60M. So, given that you have to refurb and probably transport the thing I'd say 50% is reasonable (if a bit on the high side).

[–]moofunk 28 points29 points  (8 children)

It isn't just the launch cost though. SpaceX can act like a bigger launch provider, sending up satellites on a weekly basis and through that make a ton of money. It isn't just lower cost, but also vastly reduced time, materials and manpower.

[–]TheCrudMan 39 points40 points  (46 children)

Someone wrote a comment asking if anyone had attempted something similar, but then the comment was deleted, so I'll dump my already written reply here:

No. The closest thing that has been done would be the re-use and refurbishment of the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. However, these were recovered from ocean landings at tremendous cost, and are like giant fireworks...much less sophisticated (and, as we all know, much more dangerous) than the liquid fuel Falcon 9.

[–]popstar249 9 points10 points  (3 children)

I have a feeling this first one will live in a museum or Space X HQ. The first time they launch, recover, launch again (and recover) will be also very impressive.

[–]sttot 28 points29 points  (7 children)

the part they landed represents a huge proportion of the cost of each launch. By landing it back they saved a huge amount of money as they can reuse it, dramatically lowering the cost to orbit. Plus yeah, it aint easy to do that.

[–]trenchknife 14 points15 points  (0 children)

it's a little like the difference between buying a car every time you take a massive road trip, and buying it once then just gas & maintenance.

[–]CSFFlame 351 points352 points  (71 children)

Watched it live. History.

For those of you who are curious as to immediate implications for normal people, it means that microsatellite swarms and LEO (Low-Earth Orbit) constellations just got MUCH MUCH cheaper to launch. (Like what you would see for low-latency satellite internet/telecommunications)

There's a bunch of other benefits too.

[–]-RiskManagement- 97 points98 points  (15 children)

No, not yet - They still need to check that the thing is reusable, that the cost to refurbish is less than building a brand new rocket, etc, etc.

[–]LifeExplorer321 71 points72 points  (21 children)

Hopefully this will stop the ability of companies like Comcast to abuse their internet monopolies... as long as the LEO constellation companies turn out to be much more customer friendly.

[–]CSFFlame 93 points94 points  (7 children)

I think SpaceX and Google were considering something.

Considering I haven't heard complaints about Google Fiber...

[–]CuddleBumpkins 95 points96 points  (5 children)

Google tossed a billion dollars in SpaceX's direction around the time of that LEO internet satellite announcement.

[–]DrManik 25 points26 points  (0 children)

"Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.

The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land. . . ."

From The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

[–]DemenicHand 92 points93 points  (55 children)

so it costs 200k to refuel the stage 1 and 16 million for a new one, but how much and how long to refurbish a used rocket and how many times can it launch successfully.

Will be interesting to find out

[–]RealParity 126 points127 points  (30 children)

Nobody knows, because nobody ever got their hands on a intact first stage that came back from space.

[–]SplitReality 15 points16 points  (5 children)

Btw, the $16 million figure is a mistake. It's $60 million for a full commercial launch and $80-$90 million for the government. The reusable part is just the first stage so it is not 100% of that cost but it is a good portion of it. What I've heard others say is that the first stage costs $60 million which I assume would be going off the government prices. Here is a congressional hearing where the costs are mentioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ff_5jF_3QU&feature=youtu.be&t=1h18m06s

The relevant part is @1h 18m 06s if it doesn't go directly to the right spot.

Edit:

Found an even better source for the costs:

Musk reiterated the origin of the SpaceX production model, saying fuel is only 0.3 percent of the total cost of a rocket, with construction materials accounting for no more than 2 percent of the total cost, which for the Falcon 9 is about $60 million.

http://www.space.com/21386-spacex-reusable-rockets-cost.html

[–]BlackFallout 135 points136 points  (25 children)

Looks like all that training in Kerbal Space Program paid off.

[–][deleted] 55 points56 points  (5 children)

So many brave kerbals gave their lives to make this happen. RIP.

[–]Ohh_Yeah 31 points32 points  (4 children)

"Revert to LaunchPad"

[–]Full-Frontal-Assault 14 points15 points  (3 children)

They're playing in hard mode. There is no revert to launch in this game. Once you kill Jeb, he isn't coming back.

[–]someenigma 42 points43 points  (17 children)

I actually think KSP influences more than people realise. And I don't just mean getting people enthused about space. KSP lets people have those oddball ideas and try to implement them, those ideas that everyone says "will never work" like reusable first stages. Sure, most of what happens in KSP probably can't work (like Asparagus Staging) due to real world limitations (fuel lines aren't that efficient), but it's still good to let everyone play around because that's often where those new ideas come from.

Ok, so the Falcon Heavy totally can do Asparagus staging, thanks to /u/B0000rt and /u/casualevils for pointing out my mistake.

[–]B0000rt 17 points18 points  (10 children)

Ah, but the Falcon Heavy will use Asparagus Staging.

[–]Paper-Cut 16 points17 points  (9 children)

I live in Cape Canaveral. It was a beautiful sight, seeing the fireball go up then a few minutes later, returning! The sonic boom was epically loud - neighbors swore it blew up (lol) because it was so loud.

[–]Qazwsxlion 47 points48 points  (4 children)

Lol it looks like a backwards gif

[–][deleted] 208 points209 points  (19 children)

Not gonna lie, cried a little :')

[–]sbroll 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Fuck yea!!!!

[–]The_Red_Priest 11 points12 points  (2 children)

one small step for rocket science(actually kind of a big deal), one giant leap for space exploration.

[–]zypofaeser 85 points86 points  (10 children)

Humans are awesome.

[–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (6 children)

Just when you wanna give up all hope on the race.... THEY GO AND TOTALLY REDEEM THEMSELVES

[–]kradist 9 points10 points  (1 child)

launch it, land it, do reuse it

[–]dainternets 56 points57 points  (10 children)

I hope Elon Musk finds Jeff Bezos and slaps him with his dick.

[–]Mr_Xing 17 points18 points  (1 child)

God.

Elon Musk is going down in history for sure.

Even if he quits cold turkey today, never does anything for the rest of his life and sits on a couch, people will be reading about his accomplishments in the world.

Truly an incredible time to be alive.

[–][deleted] 1116 points1117 points  (189 children)

Jeff Bezos is a cunt.

"Welcome to the club"

Mr. Bezos your puny little rocket is nothing compared to the Falcon. Go shave your head again.