[rajivtiru]

You're pretty much right.

This has no production value. This is great "look at this thing that we can do" video but the reason no one else attempts it is because there is no next step. They didn't just stop at 744 meters for no reason, fuel is the limitation here.

It is impossible(unless you want to build something the size of Saturn V again) to put enough fuel on a launch vehicle to carry a satellite to orbit and then land it back like this.

I don't have the exact data, but as an guesstimate it would take twice as much fuel(fuel + "return fuel") to land the rocket back like this. We also need to put in extra fuel to take the "return fuel" up there in the first place...you get the idea.

Extremely un-economical. I do not see a next step for grasshopper because building another rocket is cheaper than returning the engine back like this.

[vectorjohn]

"I don't have the exact data..."

Well said. You don't. Buy if you can do ticket science on the back of the envelope, imagine what the ACTUAL rocket scientists can do. You think they went "hey, I just came up with this guesstimate that this is going to be impossible, but let's go ahead and blow the money anyway."

I can bullshit rocket science too: you overlook all kinds of stuff. Such as when coming back to Earth they don't need fuel to fight air resistance which will actually do most of the work for them. Bam! No need to double the fuel.

But what do I know. I'm not the one doing it and neither are you.

[deletes]

Well said.

[voodoomagicman]

The idea is not to slowly fly to orbit and back - it is for the stages to fall to earth and then decelerate from terminal velocity to a gentle landing. The reason for these tests is to develop the technology required to do that.

According to Musk, fuel accounts for only 0.3% of the costs of a launch, so a re-usable rocket could achieve significant cost savings even though it would require more fuel.

[Kim_Bruning]

Well, rockets are staged. If you only recover the first stage, that's still a big savings. As it happens, the first stage on a space rocket doesn't need to climb very high and doesn't need to move downrange very far; it just has to lift a lot of weight. Having it come back down afterwards is still a huge control problem, but not impossible in terms of physics. You're not that far downrange and have (relatively) little lateral movement to compensate.

A second or third stage could be more tricky, of course.

[gridspy]

Since most of the trip back is conducted at terminal velocity, you only need enough fuel to decelerate from that. In addition, you are no longer lifting the 2nd stage and all that fuel any more.

So it would be SUBSTANTIALLY less than 50% probably less than 10% extra fuel. Far far smarter though. Much harder design.

[Axsuul]

Fuel is cheap compared to the launch vehicle.