Landing a rocket is great, but will it save money?

“If one can figure out how to effectively reuse rockets just like airplanes, the cost of access to space will be reduced by as much as a factor of a hundred”, Musk said on SpaceX’s website.

This December, SpaceX realized one of Musk’s dreams for a fleet of reusable rockets by shooting a Falcon 9 rocket up into space and then landing its first stage back on Earth, completely intact.

Now, after two successful landings between SpaceX and Blue Origin, we’re on our way to drastically reduced launch costs, Musk told reporters during a conference call on Monday. In late November, Amazon ( AMZN ) CEO and ” purposeful Darwinist ” Jeff Bezos’ private spaceflight company Blue Origin launched its flagship rocket-New Shepard-and brought it back to Earth without the vessel falling in a blazing inferno.

SpaceX employees erupted in jubilation as they watched live video footage of the white first-stage booster slowly descending upright through a damp, darkened night sky amid a glowing orange ball of light to make a picture-perfect landing.

The attempt in April was near success but an engine malfunction caused the rocket to fall off the platform into the ocean. But last month Bezos’ Blue Origin flew a rocket to the edge of space, and landed it in a remote swath of West Texas.

“Lower launch costs mean more space-related endeavors, more startups, more space tourism, more space businesses”, he said.

The launch’s payload, 11 ORBCOMM satellites destined to join others in the communications company’s network, was also successfully deployed with no problems. Welcome to the club! (Credit: SpaceX)The Falcon 9’s first-stage booster shows scorch marks after its touchdown at Landing Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral. In order for that to happen, you must have a rocket on Mars that can launch astronauts off the Red Planet after they have landed. SpaceX landed a rocket named Grasshopper vertically two years ago, but that one didn’t go into space. Eliminating a $16 million expense could drastically bring down launch costs.

Typically, rockets are discarded after a single flight.

The reason is pretty simple: It’s because getting to space is really expensive – and wasteful. Just 10 minutes after launch the Falcon 9 fell toward earth at supersonic speeds, reignited its thrusters to slow its descent, and finally touched down on a target a few miles from the original launch pad. Excitement and congratulations from all on this spectacular achievement, with some meaningful additions that pointed out the importance of this event in the grand scheme of space travel and the future. After Musk gave a backward compliment to Bezos following the landing of New Shepard, Bezos returned the sentiment on Monday.