SpaceX Landed a Freaking Rocket on a Robot Boat in the Dark

I repeat: SpaceX has landed a freaking rocket on a robot boat in the dark. Defying its own predictions, the Hawthorne-based commercial spaceflight company has safely brought a Falcon 9 from the edge of space--where it was traveling at nearly six times the speed of sound--to a stationary platform floating several hundred miles off the coast of Florida. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was skeptical this was possible, because the rocket's payload, a communications satellite, was heading to an orbital altitude of 22,300 feet. Which means the rocket would be coming home very, very hot. "It wants to melt," he said at an earlier press event.