The rockets are nifty, but it is satellites that make SpaceX valuable

There was no mistaking the feat of engineering. The bottom half of the biggest object ever flown—by itself as tall as a 747 is long—came hurtling out of the sky so fast that it glowed from the friction. With the ground rushing to meet it, a cluster of its engines briefly relit, slowing the rocket and guiding it carefully back towards the same steel tower from which it had launched just seven minutes previously. A pair of arms swang closed to catch it, leaving it suspended and smoking in the early-morning sunshine.