SpaceX Falcon 9 landing attempt

[jakeXT]

[NV Whino]

1. Whoops.

[Fred Sanders]

2. I mean, really, that is not even close.....seriously, try to land it like a normal aircraft.

Or try a parachute.

The whole idea of a powered sea landing on a platform...can someone explain the logic?

[jakeXT]

3. For safety, but it made the test more difficult

While not providing details of when or where that attempt would occur, Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX President and COO, told Defense News on Wednesday that the company hopes its next attempted landing will take place on land, not at sea.

All tests of the reusable vehicle have occurred over water as a safety precaution, but the natural instability that occurs when a landing pad floating in the ocean has a very heavy rocket land on top of it has led to a series of near-misses for the technology.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/space/2015/04/15/spacex-ground-attempt-reusable-landing-sea/25827625/

[shebornik]

4. anybody lining up to ride this thing?

[BlueEye]

5. To be fair,

The portion of flight where the first stage booster lands itself vertically comes AFTER the payload (which will soon be human astronauts) has jettisoned and safely continued its flight to orbit. The Falcon 9 has safely delivered dozens of payloads to orbit, and will continue to do so. When the astronauts are ready to come back to earth, they will re-enter and "splashdown" in the same manner that space capsules have been doing for decades.

[LunaSea]

6. View from the barge

https://vid.me/i6o5