And for some reason seeing 2 land at the same time is a 100 times cooler. Seems like coolness is non-linear.

Brings a tear to my eye every time I see them land ever so smoothly.

You're not alone. I watched it live before work this morning, and I simultaneously got the chills and started tearing up. It hits all of my aerospace nerd, rocket geek, engineering-minded nerves at the same time, and it's quite an experience.

Hollywood must be very unhappy.

I think, to some degree, this is because we got used to seeing one landing.

It's hard to measure objectively but I feel I was dramatically more impressed seeing first Falcon Heavy come down than I was seeing the first successful (non-heavy) landing. I've shown a lot of people (who aren't otherwise into space) the original Falcon Heavy landing video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c

The most common response, by far, is: "Is that real?"

It really is just that amazing. Even look at the YouTube comments. It's enough to make even the internet become a place of shared awe, wonder, and inspiration. Makes one wonder what the world would be like if we had media that focused more on things like this and less on things that divide and agitate people.

I think two rockets landing at the same time, in unison, more accurately displays the fact both are under computer control.

One landing could just be some person steering it. But two?

I don't think you can extrapolate whether it's linear from two datapoints.

Three datapoints (no launch is a datapoint too)

margin-left: '2 miles';

Our brains are wired to see twins (and symmetry) as evidence of intent as opposed to randomness. Lots of examples in art, and of course both the WTC twin towers and the 9/11 attacks. There’s more power seeing two of something.

>Our brains are wired to see twins (and symmetry) as evidence of intent as opposed to randomness.

This seems like a massive over-generalization.

Symmetry is part of beauty across time and culture. For example people with more facial symmetry are considered better looking.

Yes, but it's not evidence of intent. It's lack of deformity and disease.

The word for "lack of deformity" is "form" which we generally use to refer to something which was generated based on a rule, as opposed to complete randomness.

Which is evidence of intent! -- the intent of the genome being successfully carried out. :-)

Perhaps? Can you think of a counter-example, where seeing an event happen once is more attention-getting and memorable than seeing the event happen twice in a row in quick succession?

Imagine you see a herd of deer trotting along, and one goes down. A hole, or ditch, or maybe a predator? Now imagine two deer go down at nearly the same time. Different implications, or at least different probabilities to the possible implications.

I'll stand by my over-generalization for now, but I'm open to counter-examples.

I see one frog, it’s random. I see two frogs..???

The WTC twin towers were replaced by a single big tower. If someone blew that up we sure as fuck would get the clear message on that one.

What a silly statement.

I mean people didn't know it wasn't an accident until another plane hit the second tower...

When I was a kid, I used to watch Thunderbirds [1], which I loved dearly - except that I always thought it fanciful to show Thunderbirds 1 and 3 landing upright back at the Tracy Island base. Many, many years later, of course, my scepticism was erased by watching exactly that happen in real life, courtesy of SpaceX's Falcon 9. Inspirational and astonishing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(TV_series)

Here’s the vertical landing scene: https://youtu.be/JuhahPrF7gk

There's also Tintin in 1952

the landing

https://youtu.be/819TMe9-Oyc?t=2183

the comics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorers_on_the_Moon

SpaceX Crew-1 and Thunderbirds mashup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loPxTnJc9Zk

I cannot wait for the Starship version...

I haven't seen one up-close (yet!) but I agree. This was pure science fiction when I grew up, watching a booster landing is a thrill every time.

Too bad they didn't recover the third one.

AFAIK it was intentional because the payload (from the US Space Force) was going to a geosynchronous orbit.

Correct, this was the first direct-to-GEO launch, so they needed the extra dV to get there. Left nothing in the tank for a landing, so to speak.

It almost looks like CGI, probably because we've seen this happen countless times in various Sci Fi shows and movies.

Well, Apollo missions used miniatures on a sound stage instead of CGI. /s