The private spaceflight company brought the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth for a soft touchdown tonight (Dec. 21), pulling off history's first-ever rocket landing during an orbital launch. (Blue Origin, the company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, landed its New Shepard booster successfully last month, but that occurred during a suborbital test.)SpaceX successfully landed this way in a suborbital test BEFORE Blue Origin. Blue Origin may have the lead in the development of a methane-burning engine -- for now -- and gets paid more per pound to orbit (that's gubmint for ya). This landing was superb, nailed it, and after the launch failure earlier in the year, SpaceX needed this, bigtime. Congratulations to SpaceX, and I look forward to the Falcon Heavy test in 2016 -- they're the ticket to Mars colonization. Getting this launch down is a necessity, obviously there are no cranes or other infrastructure on Mars, and the methane-burning engine will be needed because methane fuel is available on Mars (kerosene not so much). Thanks Jack!
“and the methane-burning engine will be needed because methane fuel is available on Mars”
NASA says that there isn’t any methane on Mars.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-285
It just suddenly disappeared! Completely unexpected!
Currently Falcon Heavy is scheduled to lift off sometime in May 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches