>Are you seriously implying that landing a rocket is an unprecedented step in that direction? >Do you think something like this would have been impossible if people had set their minds to do it, in the 60.

It would have been impossible. They just didnt have the materials science to build lightweight engines, fuel tanks, landing legs and such. The computers needed to control the rocket would have been the size of a large building and have to be on the rocket to be responsive enough. Remote control wouldn't have been an option. Also GPS didn't exist and no contemporary positioning technology light enough was up to the precision required.

The 90s is another matter. The DC-X was pretty much a direct ancestor of the SpaceX and Blue Origin plans. Still, it would have required a manual or remote control landing, which would be horribly inefficient compared to an entirely computer controlled 'suicide burn' landing. Even so there's a world of difference between being able to do something and actually doing it.

I don't know if they could have reduced costs as agressively in the 60's. The market was then smaller and making things more expensive (as the world population was smaller and productivity was lower than today). I don't know if this matters though. I'm sure soviet russia could have manufactured space tourist busses in stead of all the nukes and launchers they did as they played by a bit different economic rules. That would have been awesome. Instead we got just an opportunity for thousand megadeaths.

Yes it is. The rocket costs 15 million. The Fuel is 200 thousand. Getting the rocket back is a huge potential realization in cost efficiency.