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As was mentioned above, the cost of the fuel is a non-starter. Currently SpaceX uses a Kerosene / Liquid Oxygen fuel mix.

After the anomaly (the space industries way of saying accident) in June SpaceX did a complete vehicle review. They are now using a more advanced technique to cool the LOX which means for a denser LOX liquid in their tanks, which ultimately means they have more oxidizer on board for their flights now.

Coupled with the LOX improvements they have made upgrades to the engines which means 30% greater efficiency. Basically the horsepower per engine has increased.

This means they can get their payloads to orbit plus have more then enough fuel left over in stage 1 to return it to land.

The greatest efficiency comes from returning the stage(s) and then reusing them in future launches (not proven yet). ALL launchers (u.s, soviet, indian, ESA, Japan, etc) ditch ALL of their hardware into the ocean when getting payload to orbit. Bye, bye multi million dollars worth of engines and hardware.

If SpaceX can turn that scenario on its head and reuse those stages and MORE importantly the engines they will cut their costs per launch by a substantial amount. Ultimately that means cheaper per pound cost to get material into orbit.

All of the media uses the word "explosion" when describing the June anomaly which is funny because there was never an ignition of onboard fuels.

The LOX tanks have smaller Helium tanks inside them. The helium is released during launch. The helium rises in the LOX quickly, expands and pressurizes the tank to ensure the LOX is "squeezed" into the pipes in order to keep up with the turbo pumps.

One of the struts holding a helium tank inside the LOX tank failed. The helium tank shot up and blew threw the top of the LOX tank and took a good part of the top of the stack off. The engines actually fired for a few seconds after the anomaly and then sputtered out. The rest of the vehicle at this point is still fairly intact.

Without proper structural integrity the vehicle started to veer off course, dynamic pressures built up and the vehicle was essentially ripped apart by those forces.

At 3:20 the Helium tank rips off its struts. At 3:27 the remainder of the vehicle disintegrates:

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

SpaceX mentioned that in June, the dragon capsule continued to relay telemetry until it smacked into the ocean. If the Dragon had better software onboard it would have detected the anomaly and recovered with chutes. Elon said that software would be active on Dragons from now on.

Coot Coot and prune chute...that got me, LOL.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Makes me wonder if people will ever be able to land in wing suits, without pulling a chute.

Actually, it's all in the terminal velocity. He (or she) never exceeds the same speed he would from 10ft up. His weight-to-surface-area ratio is roughly the same as a human skydiver using a reserve chute. He'd easily survive, especially if he grabbed the end of a branch at the end.

As Woody once said, "it's falling... with style!".

A friend of mine lost consciousness while parachuting last summer. He says they synched the gear too tight, which cut off his circulation and he passed out. whether he mannaged to deploy his chute, or it opened on it's own, I'm not sure, he doesn't remember anything after that.
He regained consciousness a while after he hit a house and bounced to the ground.
He's lucky to be alive and is continuing to re-learn how to walk again.

My assumption is that whenever possible you'd want the main chute to deploy because the emergency chute is just that: for emergencies.

Kind of like how it's better to use a full-sized tire instead of a compact spare (on your car, not as a parachute).

At least in Australia, all chutes are required by law to have this. It deploys your backup chute.

Chute is a wierd word...

chute chute chute.

....chute.

Isn't there a little barometric device that automatically deploys your chute if you reach a certain altitude? Might not be standard issue. Losing consciousness, for all sort of reasons, can't be all that uncommon while skydiving.

As for why, I dunno. Some epileptics have seizures very, very rarely (like once every few years), and the medication works pretty well. I have epileptic friends who legally drive. You do need a doctor to say it's cool, though.

Of course, he may not even have epilepsy. Might be seizing for some other reason (like skydiving adrenaline awesomeness/mortal terror overload).

What do you mean 'you don't get a good look at the line'? you see it from the helicopter AND the skier's POV.
Look again at :10 and again at :15.
Oddly, I think I saw this video here a few weeks back, but I can't find it anywhere. Ski dude is *skillful (and nuts!)
EDIT: After looking again, it looks like this isn't the first run. There seem to be multiple tracks already in the canyon/chute.
Oh yeah, and might I suggest he save the whiskey for after?

If they didn't sabotage the video, your questions would have been answered. The pin would not have been picked up by the pin carriage and thus swept into the chute resulting in a strike.

This thing is practically a Rube Goldberg machine.

A simple tilted chute with a slot that identifies which way the batteries that slide down it are pointing, separating them into forms that deposit them on a conveyor, would have done the trick without all that dancing.

(Yes, I know, I destroy the magic in souls frequently. Utility over aesthetics ho!)

Good question...I was thinking 'that should be simple, 5286/4' (because they looked like quarters), but then I realized they are not quarters.
Also, it looked like it dumped 5286 coins into the machine, and if so there's no telling how many actually fell into the pay out chute.
And, because the extra coins made all the balls fall, they won more than just the 5286 coins...but how much more?

POW! RIght up the corn chute has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims on that post.