Yesterday, on its fourth try, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) succeeded in placing its Falcon 1 rocket into orbit.  This is a tremendous step forward for NewSpace, and a huge blow to those who still insist that only massively expensive government programs can develop the means to explore, settle, and develop the solar system.  Still, make no mistake, this is only one step in a never-ending journey for SpaceX and NewSpace... and all of humanity.  And these steps will continue, no matter how challenging and painful they may be.

This success is even sweeter when compared with the current status of the US Government's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program as reported just last Friday in the US Government Accountability report Space Acquisitions: Uncertainties in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Program Pose Management and Oversight Challenges.

In 2005, Boeing and Lockheed Martin formed a joint venture called the United Launch Alliance (ULA) to manage the EELV program, and as stated in the report, "The EELV program currently faces uncertainties in the reliability of the vehicles used to launch military and other government spacecraft as well as its budget for future years and in the merger of its two principal suppliers. Taken together, these unknowns require careful monitoring and oversight to ensure a fairly long track record of launch successes can continue. Though the program has had 21 successful operational launches, no single configuration from either family of launch vehicles has been launched enough times to demonstrate production process reliability."

One element of the sweetness of SpaceX's success is that the company filed an anti-trust lawsuit on Oct. 19, 2005 alleging that the formation of ULA was part of a pattern of behavior by Boeing and Lockheed Martin to prevent SpaceX from entering the government launch market.  The lawsuit was later dismissed by the judge.

Since then ULA has had 21 successful launches, and SpaceX forged ahead and now has its first success.  I wonder where the two companies would be now if the lawsuit had been successful, and whether or not the nation's overall space launch capability would be better or worse.  That should be worth a lot of conversation at your favorite martini or espresso bar.