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SpaceX has a huge lead, no doubt. But there's a handful of smaller companies which are very promising. Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle has had 13 successful launches (3 failures) to LEO. Firefly and Relativity (which are founded by former SpaceX/Blue Origin employees) are making a lot of progress as well.

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While the Electron is cool, the comparison is pretty far off.

The Electron can put 600kg into low Earth orbit.

Falcon 9 can handle 15,000 kg. Starship is expected to handle 100,000 kg.

The Falcon 1 is a good comparison to the Electron. If it had been fully developed it was expected to lift 600kg to leo by 2010 or 2011. 10 years ago, basically.

I didn't compare Electron to Falcon 9 or Starship.

From the parent post:

> they're now at least a decade behind.

The original claim was that competitors are a decade behind spaceX and Electron's capabilities are comparable to the technology spaceX had a decade ago. The Falcon 9 comparisons are to highlight the decade delta.

edit: grammar

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