ELI5. If the weight of rocket fuel is so important, why do SpaceX boosters waste a ton of fuel landing themselves?

Question

ELI5. If the weight of rocket fuel is so important, why do SpaceX boosters waste a ton of fuel landing themselves?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Since they’re empty at landing they use much less landing than launching but it is true they sacrifice total payload to be able to land. But that’s offset by being able to build one rocket to launch 20 times