I'm struggling to see the amazing advancement in all this. It's really just that a rocket landed, right?
I mean we've been sending things into space and had men walking on the moon nearly 50 years ago. So it's just the re-usable rockets that are the new thing, right?
It's a pity that something more useful was put up instead of a car, pure publicity stunt. I get that there is 'risk' to the payload on a maiden flight but there could have been lots of cheap, useful payloads sent up instead of something that just adds to the debris now littering earth's orbit. Maybe something that could do some cleanup? Now that would have been impressive
It's kind of a big deal. Yes we did things like these 50 years ago, but there's a much higher level of refinement, meaning reusability and lower costs.
It's like saying, on the maiden flight of a new airplane capable of cheap long distance travel for the first time "didn't the Wright brothers fly an airplane decades ago?"
With lower costs comes greater access to space and whatever it is we want to do--things like better internet access for example. Furthermore, this is a largely private company. It will be joined soon by Bezos' Blue Origin, Allen's Stratolaunch, and Virgin Galactic, provided they all execute.
As for the car, you hit on the reason it was the payload. But it won't be in our vicinity for long. It's going out into deep space.