[adastra]

The first stage isn't going at orbital velocity of course, but the second stage is. The SpaceX announcement for Grasshopper refers to both:

http://www.space.com/13140-spacex-private-reusable-rocket-el...

I'm sure they'll start with just the first stage, but you can't just do a powered descent - that would leave it in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. It has to be a return-to-launch-site maneuver and landing, which is what you see in the video linked to above. At the point where the vehicle does a 180-degree turn (referred to as a "death swoop" by rlv enthusiasts), it's going Mach 6 and is 1000 miles downrange. That's hard.

[jlgreco]

With their planned "helicopter like inaccuracy", could they just land it on a barge out in the middle of the Atlantic instead?

[Gravityloss]

Jeff Bezos has actually tried to patent the barge landing. Go figure. http://ipinspace.com/2012/02/13/repeat-after-me-patent-appli...

[adastra]

Bezos, or his handlers anyway, can be pretty outrageous with this kind of stuff. Water landings of VTVL's have been talked about since the 1960's by various people. It would be pretty ridiculous if he was granted the patent for it.