The mighty SpaceX recovery video

SpaceX Landing Restoration 2014/06/04 20:52:32 GMT (0 min 21 sec)

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=34597

http://spacexlanding.wikispaces.com

Reading about how the restoration of that video was done, it's amazing how many people are able to hand restore a corrupted H.264 video stream, fixing the corrupted headers in a hex editor, writing a custom macroblock editor to fix the macroblock encodings in every single frame.

Years ago, it was a small miracle just for someone to know what a GOP was, let alone fix the macroblock encodings. Overnight, that skill became normal. From their piano competitions, to their self driving cars, to their H.264 video repairs, the millenials are a new league of talent, far more than generation Y & a different universe than generation X. It explains why job interviews are so much harder than 5 years ago & feel a lot more like standing on your head.

Fixing the SpaceX video was an exceptional case that required experts in H.264 macro block encoding editor writing. Attacking exceptional cases that require standing on your head is almost entirely what feeds the new economy.

It was the 1st time a 1st stage ever landed itself. It was an idea proposed only in drawings, for almost a century. They only launch 3 times per year, with 1 launch capable of having enough margin to attempt a recovery. The powered descent is too expensive to make more than 33% of their launchers recoverable. To be 100% recoverable, they would have to move the remaneing 2 launches per year to Falcon 9 heavy, which would be completely unaffordable.