Watch SpaceX land a rocket in this awesome 360 video

Have you ever wished you could stand on deck as a 160-foot rocket lands an arm’s length away from you, after a short trip into space? Yeah, me too, but given the rockets’ tendency to fall over and dramatically explode in a giant ball of fire, perhaps watching it with a VR headset is a the slightly safer option.

SpaceX just shared a gorgeous 360-degree video with the world, and if you happen to have a VR headset, now would be a good time to dig it out and strap it to your noggin; this video is definitely best experienced up close and personal, it’s quite the spectacle.

If you’re on mobile, the Facebook player does a pretty good job of showing it off even without a headset, but it’s available on YouTube as well, if you’re so inclined.

Landing a rocket on a barge in the ocean is such a tremendous technological success that one can’t help but be agape and amazed at the feat. If SpaceX is able to consistently land all — or even most — of its first-stage rockets, it will mean a tremendous reduction in the cost of sending stuff up to the great, star-speckled darkness beyond.

As SpaceX puts it: “The Space Shuttle was technically reusable, but its giant fuel tank was discarded after each launch, and its side boosters parachuted into corrosive salt water every flight, beginning a long and involved process of retrieval and reprocessing. So, what if we could mitigate those factors by landing rockets gently and precisely on land? Refurbishment time and cost would be dramatically reduced.”

It’s a fantastically exciting time to be a space fan, for sure. And with that in mind, why not enjoy another view in glorious 4k resolution below, of the same triumphant victory of engineering, ingenuity, and perhaps just a tiny little bit of good fortune thrown into the mix as well.