The Grasshopper is 33.5 meters (110 feet) tall.

As far as I know theyre practising for landing on planets with no or little atmosphere. This kind of vtol rocketship thing has not been done since Apollo.

No AFAIK this was/is intended for reusable/cheap flight on Earth

Yeah your right I think actually.. I guess parachute a landing is too rough for a big booster and often results in damage?

I believe I can answer this: according to Musk's TED talk, the most expensive part of a rocket launch ISN'T the fuel, it's recovering and repairing the reusable launch vehicle, so it can launch again.

It takes something like weeks or months to reclaim current reusable rockets that fall back to Earth, to get them ready to launch again, and of course millions and millions of dollars.

This system would launch to space, the crew capsule would detach, then the rocket would land itself, and be ready to relaunch in like 6 hours, all for just the cost of the fuel.

I believe the green slime is technically called "landing goo".

um hello Curiosity rover? Coolest thrust-assisted landing EVAR?!

Take them.

I've wanted one of those since I first saw it.