Please watch this video in full screen HD, and give me your thoughts, comments, reactions, and feelings about it. What does it signify? How does it make you feel? I describe the events in the video after the rip-curl.
This is SpaceX's fourth or fifth test launch of a vertical-takeoff / vertical landing single-stage reusable rocket test vehicle called Grasshopper, and this time it rose to the highest height yet (250 meters / 820 feet). It's designed as a test for the possibility of flying used Falcon 9 stages back to the launch pad for ultimate refurbishment and reuse on later launches - which, if successful, would allow radical reductions in the cost of spaceflight that could open space up to humanity in general and make otherwise economically prohibitive missions practical. It's just the first test article: A newer, bigger, more advanced version is purportedly under construction.