[DanielStraight]

Why land? Fuel makes up a very small percent of the launch cost of a rocket. Landing also allows a much better experience for cargo and crew return, and it makes it possible to bring equipment to other planets or moons.

Why vertical? Vertical landing is much more flexible. You can land on a barge at sea. You can land on the launchpad itself. You can land on a planet or moon with no atmosphere.

[nicolapcweek94]

> You can land on a planet or moon with no atmosphere.

IE: Mars, the ultimate SpaceX goal, which has just enough atmosphere to be annoying but not nearly enough to make parachutes work, so they had to find another way to land a big enough payload to transport 100 tons of stuff there

[Retric]

All methods of landing on Mars require an aeroshell and parachute sequence, but after that there are three choices https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_landing

The advantage to powered landings is they work well for delicate stuff like people. Or in space X's case they are landing a really light shell and have a really powerful engine already attached.

[andars]

The first stage will not land on Mars.