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What happened at SpaceX the first time they landed a first stage

Cool image time! The National Geographic Mars series is combining fiction with high quality documentary footage of real events. The clip below shows the first ever vertical landing of a used rocket first stage in December 2015, and includes footage taken of SpaceX engineers and Elon Musk during that launch and landing. The landing ranks as one of the most important events in space history. And it still gives me goosebumps. Seeing that it also caused goosebumps to those who made it happen only emphasizes the significance of the moment.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

2 comments

  • “I’m nauseatingly pro-American. It is where great things are possible.”
    Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

    I watched the longer video you posted earlier, but this was interesting in it’s focus on Mr. Musk.

    There is only one time and place this could have happened. You have to question the rationality and sentience of those who would destroy it.

  • Edward

    “Holy smokes, man!”

    Until that moment, it was thought to be impossible. Just like going to the Moon, breaking the sound barrier, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Panama Canal, and the Transcontinental Railroad.

    Thanks for the quote, Blair.

    Thanks for the video, Robert. It was to accomplish things like this that drove me to get into the space business.

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