Elon Musk’s SpaceX has just accomplished something no other space agency on the planet has: it successfully re-launched one of its Falcon 9 rockets into orbit and had it return to Earth safely. That’s a huge deal, because it means that rockets can be reused and the cost of space missions can be reduced drastically – the first stage of the rocket that was recovered itself makes up about 80 percent of the cost of a launch mission. For reference, Popular Science notes that a SpaceX launch costs roughly $62 million, and Musk envisions reusable rockets cutting that price down…
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