That was pretty impressive, and while I love that New Shepard has flown three times, putting something into orbit and having the booster land on a drone ship is pretty freakin' awesome.
For me, the really amazing thing is that if SpaceX has been pricing their launches to cover their costs (and I realize that is a big if), they have been developing the re-usable tech on the back of those flights. And now they have 5 (or 6) test flights where two were successful that is moving that tech forward. Developing it on top of an already profitable space flight business, that is pretty amazing.
Various SpaceX execs have said they need to launch somewhere around 12 rockets/yr to be profitable in the long term (they likely have plenty of cash on hand right now, as most of their contracts pay quite a bit up front, and they have gotten a lot of funding from a couple NASA sponsored development programs).
For me, the really amazing thing is that if SpaceX has been pricing their launches to cover their costs (and I realize that is a big if), they have been developing the re-usable tech on the back of those flights. And now they have 5 (or 6) test flights where two were successful that is moving that tech forward. Developing it on top of an already profitable space flight business, that is pretty amazing.
Really impressed.