Originally Posted by
SonicFlyer
If I remember correctly I think the landing was not really what they were trying to test in that instance. Specifically I think they were trying to test another aspect of the project and as such Elon mentioned he didn't really care that much that it exploded on landing because they had already gotten the data they needed from it. Of course he could have been saying that to save face too heh
Yes, his approach to landing, recovering and re-using vehicles has been to consider them expendable and the try to recover them...if that works, bonus. Lot of failures early on but they learned and now I think they can price the Falcon 9 based on recovery.