Damon Hill writes:

The limited (almost non-existant) details of how SpaceX plans to
recover and reuse flight hardware doesn't help; a parachute and some
thermal protection material is one thing, but exposing a lot of
sensitive machinery (and especially the internals of a rocket engine)
to salt water implies a degree of 'hardening' and maybe limits
what can be usefully--read: reliably--reused.

I get the impression this is not the highest priority, nor is it
trivial if the effort can significantly cut costs.

I think that may change with Falcon 9, alone the nine turbopumps would
be worth quite a bit, although you most probably wouldn't use the
nozzles for anything serious again. They may well have had other things
to care for up to now anyway.

By the way, I liked the "F9" T-shirt one guy in the webcast was wearing,
seems to be quite a great place to work. The full 40 minutes webcast
including Elon Musk saying a lot of "umm... Yeah!... mindblowing... umm"
is available at:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=8FQhtMrUQlE

I'm really glad it worked out finally. Well done, SpaceX! Now on to F9
and Dragon...

Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery