[BenLurkin]

>

All four landing legs now mounted on Falcon 9 rocket being processed inside hanger at Cape Canaveral, FL for March 16 launch. Credit: SpaceX/Elon Musk

[Mr. K]

I hope they are smarter than NASA and put a parachute on them

Water landings are NOT that soft. I worked at a company that made the controls for the solid rocket booster then the first one that hit the water sheared it right of the nozzle

A simple parachute would have made a much softer landing

[Yo-Yo]

Video of Shuttle SRB up and down, just to show what SpaceX has to deal with to land a booster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCOyOvOw5c

[staytrue]

Where NASA screwed up on the shuttle was not separating cargo from humans.

Cargo needs only 95-99 percent reliability. Humans need 100% along with life support and all kinds of back up systems.

Eliminate the 100% threshold and the life support and the back up systems and creature comforts and you can ship cargo for about 1/50 the cost.

Then you send a small human container up and join with the cargo in space.