At last.
Seeing the earthrise must be awesome.

But 2018? Thats less than two years from now...

SpaceX’s launch of used rocket a ‘huge revolution in spaceflight’.

REBOOT, reuse and, most importantly — relaunch!

The excitement, the eagerness and, in the end, the exuberance of the employees at SpaceX headquarters in California was like the players on the field when they win the Super Bowl, going practically berserk with cheering and jubilation.

And what SpaceX did on Friday last week (AEST) was arguably far, far bigger than winning the Super Bowl of the very competitive commercial space industry.

After a couple of years landing its spent booster rockets upright on a landing pad, SpaceX used one of those same stage one rockets to launch again.

Cheers.

Success for SpaceX 're-usable rocket'
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39451401
For the first time, SpaceX has launched a military spy satellite in space.
The rocket also managed to return to Earth and land standing near the launch site.

The tracking video for that NRO mission was amazing. You can clearly see the stage maneuvering around the whole time, even see bursts of the nitrogen thrusters.

In about 8 days, June 1st just before 6pm Eastern US time, SpaceX is going to fly another ISS mission. This time, they are reusing a Dragon capsule for the first time, although I believe a large number of components have been replaced because of seawater. But it shouldn't look different from previous missions, as far as visuals. It's a daytime launch, so should have good video. But it's starting to feel expected to see a rocket land now.

India joins in

LOL.
I thought it was about Indiana Jones:)
Getting old.
Anyways.
India is a great country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1

Two launches in one weekend. One in Florida, the other in California. One was a refurbished booster. They've got to be doing something right.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Another Falcon9 launch has aborted 9 seconds before ignition. But the Dragon craft has reentered atmosphere from the ISS detachment and has been recovered in the Pacific with all its experimental data.
Tullio

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Tomorrow Monday a Falcon 9 launcher will put in orbit a Dragon cargo spacecraft with several science experiments aboard. One is the Cosmic Ray Energetic And Mass detector, designed to detect and register cosmic rays up to energies of 1000 trillion eV, 1 PeV. This is the 12th SpaceX cargo mission to the ISS. The Dragon spacecraft can return to Earth carrying trash and used equipment and parachute in the Pacific Ocean.
Tullio

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Dragon launched at 18.31 CEST. First stage has landed at Cape Canaveral. Hats off.
Tullio

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I heard the sonic boom before the booster landed.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Dragon captured by the ISS robotic arm at 12 52 CEST.

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A Falcon9 launcher has orbited the X37-B USAF robotic mini shuttle.

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I trust that this is acceptable here. I found it interesting.

The new Space Race

Dragon spacecraft has landed in the Pacific and it is being retrieved with its load of scientific apparatus.

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Musk is about to give a speech with updates about SpaceX progress and future plans. Should be in 1.5 hours from now, September 29 04:30 UTC, or 00:30 US Eastern. It will be broadcasted live on SpaceX's YouTube channel.

Italian newspapers run a story about a NASA-ROSCOSMOS agreement to build a space station orbiting the Moon. Maybe Musk wants to be a partner in that enterprise. The agreement was announced at Adelaide, Australia.
Tullio

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It seems that Musk wants to go to Mars with a 31 boosters Falcon rocket. But will it come back? I remember a forecast made by Wernher von Braun. You need to put 30 thousand tons in Earth orbit to go to Mars and come back. Even with improvements made to rocket propulsion, this is too much. The NASA-ESA-ROSCOSMOS plan to build a lunar space station as a start step seems more realistic.
Tullio

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It seems that Musk wants to go to Mars with a 31 boosters Falcon rocket. But will it come back? I remember a forecast made by Wernher von Braun. You need to put 30 thousand tons in Earth orbit to go to Mars and come back. Even with improvements made to rocket propulsion, this is too much.
Tullio

Hopefully they will do some tests to land on Mars and successfully bringing the spacecraft back to earth before sending humans to Mars.
When will we see that?

Yes. And a cargo already in 2022.

Mr Musk recognises that his ambitious timelines sometimes slip. When he put up a slide in Adelaide stating that the first cargo (no humans aboard) versions of BFR would go to Mars in 2022, he said: "That's not a typo, although it is aspirational."

So far all human trips to Mars looks to me like a one way ticket!