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by 824ueirwfjd 3392 days ago
> eight first stage rockets have been landed already.

Wow this is truly amazing! I didn't realize they've landed it 8 times already... I still remember watching the youtube live stream of the first successful landing and how exciting and moving it was to watch. We're truly entering a new phase of space exploration and I can't wait to see what comes of the next decade and beyond!

2 comments

After the 4th or 5th one landed, and it suddenly became clear that this was the new normal, Musk had this wonderful tweet: https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/72845980827000012...
My favourite part of this is how my perceptions have changed.

    - This cannot be possible
    - Awww, they got pretty close that's incredible
    - Great Scott, they've done it!
    - Heh, they're getting good at this
    - There's no way they'll fuck this up
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

And then once the trick is revealed, it stops being magic and just becomes "boring" math/engineering/etc.

Then:

- Yawn, another landing. It just lands, nothing exciting to see.

luckily between here and there the'll be a lot of entertaining fireworks to be had.

the only shameful aspect of it is how the press will portray failures as terrible events for SpaceX, while they're still pushing the envelope and boundaries of what we think it's possible with failures being normal for quite some time yet.

I think SpaceX has done a good job countering this perspective so far. Their press releases and web casts consistently reinforce that the landing is merely a secondary objective and an experiment which they will learn a great deal from whether it blows up or not.
Pretty much my thinking too.