Seems like spaceships used to do this all the damn time in the 1930’s, but that was before NASA and you can count on those bastards to screw everything up.
Yeah, I know that other billionaire’s drone did it three times already, but that was on land and anyway that one has never delivered anything into orbit. This one did that, then came back and landed on a tiny barge in the frickin’ ocean.
And that’s just cool.
ETA: This thing is supposedly delivering one of those inflatable Bigelow modules to the ISS for testing – finally – and so maybe there’s progress on that front as well. I’ve given up hope of seeing regular people leaving earth to take care of their own damn business in my lifetime, but commercial business in orbit using commercial rockets can’t be a bad thing.
That is truly history in the making. The effect this will have on the space launch business is elementary to describe; it changes everything!
It was really cool to watch. Being the SF geek that I am I see this as one of the first baby steps to getting off this mud ball.
“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don’t have a space program, it’ll serve us right!” – Larry Niiven
The way I see it, as soon as it becomes physically possible to go into space and not come back down, some people will see that as a good thing to do. I don’t mean go to another planet, I mean just go and build their own homes along the way.
Some of those people will die. The ones that don’t will evolve. Precisely what they’ll evolve into, I’ve no clue but consider this: Infinite mobility without borders or boundaries brings immunity from the tyranny of anything but physics and it is a state no human has ever experienced. That will bring interesting times, possibly even in a good way.
Somewhere out there, D.D. Harriman is smiling.