Rocketing Restarts - Space Geek Diary :D

Okay fellow space enthusiasts - its time to get your geek on.  Tomorrow, I'll have a diary that is very disturbing about something going on in the House & Senate Science Committees, but its Sunday, and I am relaxing, enjoying the great flight of SpaceX's Falcon 9.  

And something very cool has popped in the in box

So, 2 of the companies working on suborbital vehicles are Masten Space Systems, and Armadillo Aerospace.  Both vehicles are what is called Vertical Take-off Vertical Landings.  That means they take off and land vertically - think like a helicopter.  The DC-X did this in the 90s.  

Anyway, both Masten & Armadillo have flown multiple vehicles, as part of a testing program, to do suborbital spaceflight for various potential reasons (science, tourism, remote sensing, etc).  Anyway, something new and cool has come up

With VTVL vehicles, there is an maneuver known as a mid-air engine restart.  Basically, you fly your vehicle up to some altitude, and then shut the engine down.  The rocket falls some amount of distance, and then you restart the engine, stabilize your rocket, and land ever so gracefully.  Sounds easy, right?  Up until this year, no one has ever done it.

On May 27, Masten Space Systems' Xombie rocket became the first vehicle to do this, ever.

Armadillo Aerospace decided to respond

With these kinds of events (including the success of the Falcon 9 rocket), anyone else feeling more optimistic about our future in space?