how the hell did they get that thing to fly straight up like that then back down without tipping over?

Originally posted by dc4lifeskater
how the hell did they get that thing to fly straight up like that then back down without tipping over?

It appears to use smaller rockets to stabilize itself.. they would fire to push against whichever way the rocket is leaning to keep it straight.. it appears as though it has four of them... attached tot he "feet" of the rocket

Wow that was a cool video. Just shows how far rocket/ flight tech has come over the years.

Kudos to SpaceX I have a feeling their role in space tech the next few decades will be substantial and necessary.
I cant wait to see what the next few years will hold.

The test flight lasted 29 seconds and included approximately 8 seconds of hovering time at the apex before returning back to the launch pad. There was a small amount of lateral drift as the rocket ascended, and it appears most of this drift was corrected on the descent.

The Grasshopper consists of a Falcon 9 first stage fuselage with a Merlin 1D engine, and also has a set of four external, hydraulically dampened landing legs added to the base of the fuselage to aid in the touchdown.



Currently the Falcon 9 first stage falls into the ocean after it’s finished boosting the second stage and Dragon spacecraft much of the way towards orbit. If the Grasshopper testing and development is successful, SpaceX aims to have the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket use a few of the nine Merlin engines on board to steer it back to the launch site and then use the engines to slow it down for a precision landing similar to the video above.

131 feet huh? So basically they've managed to beat the vertical limit of your average bottle rocket, by a whopping 40 some feet. Gotta star somewhere I suppose. I think they should avoid the traditional approach and think more outside the box. Anyone else familiar with the other "Project HARP"? If you're not familiar I'd look it up. Pretty interesting approach for satellite launch, though I imagine it would take some serious tweaking to increase the payload to include passengers/crew. Would definately make for a hell of a launch to anyone on board.

Seems as if humans are still finding different ways to invent the wheel..
Anti gravity/ and plasma propulsion seem more logical..
using a "Fuel" based cylinder is like leaving your house in an electric car
with no way to recharge..

Yee-haw! Reusable single stage to orbit rocket ship here we come! Just like the ones in 1950s science fiction movies! (Seriously, this is a great milestone... but I'm a bit of a Skylon fan myself. )

All hail SpaceX, this is a first step towards fully reusable rockets.

But we need more payloads, too. What good is a reusable rocket if it flies twice a year?

All well done and precise, but doesn't it mean in effect the first stage is used twice for each launch?
How long then can the reusable, and more complex first stages actually be reused?

They must be doing alternative research into reaching orbit, I just can't see this current method of getting into orbit as a long time commercial infrastructure, but good luck to them anyway.