I didn’t get into fine details because it wasn’t needed here but if you insist. all 9 engines are used to go up. Coming down, 3 engines are used for the boost-back burn and 3 engines are used for the re-entry burn, only ONE (the center) engine is used for the landing burn. It cannot be throttled down enough to hover a…

The rocket is built first and foremost to get to space, returning it is secondary so anything that really harms the primary mission isn’t reasonable. Shape wise, it’s built the best to go up.

A flatter structure would enable glide like landings, sort of like the spaceshuttle, but that’s a completely different concept…

Nope, nope and nope. Sorry, nothing to say but you’re wrong on all counts. The lateral velocity and tilt was the cause of the leg failure. Diffuser isn’t really possible with the amount of thrust we’re talking about here. The engine’s primary goal is to get to space, anything that can hinder that or add complexity is…

It was more a joke :-P but in the grand scheme of things it’s true, the rocket was on the barge with 0 vertical velocity for multiple seconds and fell over, that’s really, really close.

weight, the legs have to be as light as possible, can’t really go bigger without drastically affecting the performance of the rocket. Even as it is, with the heaviest payloads it flies without the legs.

The grasshopper has added weight to allow it

Musk has been very open about failures in the past and why things have had issues. He has no reason to lie about such a thing. I don’t get your comments about reasonable cost...the solution is built into the rocket itself, it’s just fine-tuning at this point. The cost comes from the fuel needed which as of now means…

go troll somewhere else

NASA is very good at getting things to mars, but their pace is astronomically (hah, get it?) slow. the SLS will end up a massive boondongle. Of course it’s far more likely NASA gets there before SpaceX, all i’m saying though is it wouldn’t surprise me, especially if the raptor engine development goes well, if SpaceX…

They already know the problem, as I said there was a friction issue in a valve causing a phase delay between the computer and actual moving parts. I don’t get how you can call this “not close at all” they hit a 10foot target from SPACE, got down to 0 vertical velocity, and only juuuust tipped over because a control…

SpaceX is planning a heck of a lot more than near-earth operations. Many of these landing features will eventually be used on mars. The manned dragon has propulsive landing designed into it that is also being thought of as an eventual mars-landing technique.

In fact, NASA has been studying SpaceX’s re-entry techniques…

Weight, complexity, the fact that the engines are a jillion degrees, take your pick. Mostly, it’s the fact that such a system simply isn’t needed, the rocket is going to be able to do this itself without ground support structures as help. KISS (keep it simple stupid), the least number of steps to the solution is often…

The rocket is very, very big. Such a system would require unreasonable levels of accuracy on the rocket’s part, as well as significant support structures and cost ground side. You can’t really fit all that on a barge. It’s also just a big additional complexity and cost that just isn’t needed. The rocket WILL be able…

The problem with that is it would require accuracy down to the foot, instead of a slightly larger range. Also, the rocket really is only strong with vertical forces. Anything that exerts significant forces in other directions could cause it to fail structurally. If the rocket is at a point where it would need some…

I think you underestimate the size of the rocket

Welcome to following spaceX! Common questions, i’ll give you the simple/quick answers

What? They’re trying to recover the entire first stage by landing it, normally it would break apart on re-entry and all end up in the ocean. This has never been done before, and the end goal is to make what was once an expendable…

I’ll fill you in since you seem to be pretty new to SpaceX.

The majority of this video is staged in multiple points and it's basically fake. The diver himself has said so i'm just too lazy to find it. It was an art project pretty much.

take a look at WHIPS in volvos sometime, seat back reclines on rearend collision to avoid whiplash, but it's made for it, isn't loose, locks in place and the seatbelt tightens at the same time. Very good system, been in the cars since the '99

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHIPS

Not anything that would make a difference, it’s a big-ass rocket. The only realistic way is the way they’re doing it now/doing it on land. If there were something to make it easier, they’d be doing it. I mean....they are rocket scientists after all.