The effect when that first solid soft landing happens will be electrifying, but the effect is already happening. SpaceX has forced the entire launch industry — which has done nothing new or innovative for decades — to rethink everything it is doing, and to do this rethink fast. Things are going to get very exciting over the next few years.

Bob Clark

Musk is a classic entrepreneur, a visionary willing to take calculated risks in an effort to meet his goal. I doubt that he could sustain Spacex’s disruptive, brash and leading edge business style with the inevitable scrutiny from investors who look for stability and predictability. It would be too much of a distraction. A few launch scrubs or delays and they would be calling for his head.

There’s cool, and then there’s SpaceX.

SpaceX *is* privately held. While there are advantages to going public, Musk has stated he will not do so until the Mars community is started. This is because going public means *anyone* can buy in to significant stock. If pension fund managers do this to the extent they influence a SpaceX Board of Directors, and find themselves in a bind for cash, as seems probable in the next 10 years, then they could demand Musk drop his plans for a Mars settlement program. That program is the whole reason he started SpaceX. So, going public will probably be put off till sometime in the 2030s.

Musk has said from the day he started SpaceX that he could not meet his goals without a reusable vehicle. Retaining enough propellant in the first stage for flyback does drop payload for each launch. However, SpaceX believes they can do 10 launches with the same first stage before major refurbishment (the Shuttle needed that every flight), and 100 launches total before the vehicle was worn out.

The second stage does *not* fly back directly to the launch site, but goes into orbit with the payload. Then, its retained propellant allows it to turn so its engine faces forwards, deorbit itself, flip again so that the front end, with the same sort of PICA-X heat shield on it as the Dragon capsule has, faces forwards. It re-enters, and once it becomes sub-sonic again flips again so that its main engine can brake it to a landing on land, just like the first stage does.

The total drop in payload from both stages being reused is estimated to be 30%. However, if they meet their goals of 100 flights per vehicle, this means that instead of launching 13.5 metric tons with each Falcon 9, they will launch 945 metric tons with it. Similar numbers are calculable for the Falcon Heavy. Combine this with the high flight rates they expect from lower costs, that will make far better use of their ground crew staff, and they believe they can make a good profit at 1/100th the present price per pound to orbit.

I believe the intention is to return the 1st stage back to a location near the launch pad along the Florida coast. Apparently they have done the calculations and feel they have enough fuel for such a turnaround.