What Makes The Grasshopper Leap?

     SpaceX, the brainchild of Paypal founder, Elon Musk is set to try and add to their prestige. Earlier this year SpaceX became the first private company to successfully deliver cargo to the International Space Station, known as ISS, via their Dragon space capsule which was sent into orbit by their own Falcon 9 multistage rocket.

     SpaceX has been developing a reusable rocket code-named "Grasshopper". In just the last week, they released video of  the Grasshopper successfully rising 12 stories into the air, momentarily hovering and then setting safely back down on the launching pad. The idea behind this no doubt is the eventual use of the Grasshopper in delivering SpaceX's Dragon capsule into orbit and being able then to reuse the Grasshopper in future launches, rather than having to waste resources and money in rockets that can only be used once which are then destroyed in the process, as are the Falcon 9 rockets.

     This has long been a "holy grail" of the race to space. The problem in the past as I've always understood it is that reusable rockets have one fatal flaw. Limited capacity. The amount of fuel that has to be carried on the rocket to allow a trip that reaches Earth orbit, then can still have enough fuel on-board to safely land again leaves so little spare weight for cargo that it doesn't end up being worth the trip. If that's so, then how will the Grasshopper rocket be any different? So far, I've heard no one in the media asking questions like that of SpaceX. Do they have some new type of fuel that burns more efficiently, or an engine that can extend the range using less fuel?

     Don't get me wrong, I've been highly excited by the progress SpaceX is making in creating a real business out of going to space. I certainly hope that they have come upon a unique solution to an old problem, and that soon space travel will become as common and everyday as taking a flight across country!