> Arianespace, Astra, Axiom Space, Bigelow Aerospace, Blue Origin, Equatorial Space Systems, Firefly Aerospace, Galactic Energy, i-Space, Northrop Grumman, Redwire, Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, Scaled Composites, The Spaceship Company, United Launch Alliance, Virgin Galactic

Most of these have accomplished little and are destined to be forgotten (or never known by most people in the first place.) If SpaceX had fewer competitors, maybe engineer resources wouldn't be spread so thin and some of their competitors could actually compete in a meaningful sense.

But it's not just a problem of resources. Some of these companies have backers with deep pockets, and had every opportunity to accomplish what SpaceX has. Arianespace is backed by the French government; they've been in business for 20 years longer than SpaceX. They've built and flown hundreds of rockets. With that 20 year head start, extensive experience and backing of a powerful government, have they innovated? Nope. Ariane 6, still not flying, won't be reusable. Ariane Next should be, but they only started development on that a few years ago (2019-2021-ish) If it doesn't get delayed, Ariane Next will be a Falcon 9 competitor 20 years too late. Arianespace are so far behind SpaceX it physically pains me as a francophile.

Or Blue Origin. They were founded by Jeff Bezos in America two years before SpaceX was founded. They're a private company operating in the US backed by a billionaire with insanely deep pockets, just like SpaceX. They hired and have been hiring tons of great engineers with proven track records in the space industry. So what have they accomplished? They've put nothing put into orbit, ever. Not a single orbital test let alone fulfilled contract. They won a contract to sell engines to ULA for Vulcan, and subsequently caused Vulcan to be delayed for many years by their failure to deliver those engines on time. They may actually end up killing ULA like this; Atlas V and Delta IV / Heavy are end of life.. ULA needs Vulcan to continue fulfilling new contracts.

And why is ULA on the precipice? How could Blue Origin's failure do this to ULA? ULA were founded a few years after SpaceX, but as a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed and inherited their technology and engineering talent from those companies. They're a darling of the American military-industrial complex, the favored launcher of the Pentagon's most advanced and expensive satellites. So why haven't they innovated? Instead of innovating, they've wasted their time and money building the same old rockets they inherited. Instead of developing their own new engines, they decided to buy engines from the likes of Russia(!!!) and Blue Origin. ULA had all the opportunity in the world but they squandered it because of poor leadership.

Why does SpaceX succeed where the others flounder and fail? It's not because SpaceX had more time, money, or experience; they have several competitors with all of those in spades. It's not because of the regulatory environment SpaceX operates in, because they share that with at least some of the others as well. It's because SpaceX has more visionary leadership. I know a lot of you hate Elon Musk so you will hate this conclusion, but I challenge you to explain it any other way. Arianespace, ULA and Blue Origin each could have done what SpaceX is doing, but didn't because they have ineffective leadership with no vision for the future. Arianespace, ULA and Blue Origin wanted to plod along selling antique rockets at the speed of government molasses so they got blindsided by the company that's actually trying.