fen
Nice being a private company. If Nasa tried this and blew the rocket up the whole thing would have to be grounded for months, private companies can high five each other and just continue on. I can see why they are outsourcing stuff to private companies now.
Daishi
@fen I don't think you realize that NASA loses every booster rocket. SpaceX attempts to recover them by landing them again vertically and they aren't always successful but by being successful most of the time and recovering booster rockets for re-use they have lower costs of operation than NASA that simply loses all of them and has to build a new one again for every launch. I hope that helps clear things up.
zr2s10
Impressive. That was pretty dang close, just a touch fast, obviously
GeoffG.
It looks like it was landing on only one rocket chamber working. Admittedly the craft is much lighter at this stage, but is one chamber enough?
Ianspeed
All I can say is YES!!!! Well done The Pengwing, that data is going to help SpaceX so much. Elon has the right attitude and people working for him, no red tape, no micro management. Hands on all the way. Well worth watching Scott Manley's summarisation of the event. For me it was 100% success all the way and a fantastic sight.
Voice of Reason
@Daishi you missed @fen's point. Anything done by NASA that does not go perfectly well is cause for months or years of delays and political grandstanding whereas private companies can just move on quickly.
Worzel
Seems like doctors cliché comment, ''The operation was a success, but the patient died!''
Kpar
I remember the first landing attempt of a Falcon 9 booster. The grid fins failed due to insufficient hydraulic fluid. Fixed that, and the next landing (like most, since) was successful.

This one was just a blip. I noticed that one engine quit firing on the way up (intentional/unintentional?) and one engine failed to ignite on the way down- probably leading to the excessively rapid descent.

Exciting stuff! I look forward to SN9 and the Heavy booster.
Username
Did the first hour and 47 minutes of that video really needed to be posted?
buzzclick
The bullet shape of this SN-8 made me think of those images of that early 20th c. movie Voyage Dans La Lune where the rocket ship gets the man on the moon right in the eye.

The ground crew immediately called it a success. Did you think they would bury their heads in their hands and say Oh no, what a disaster!