Launching a multi-billion dollar satellite is a different than a hello world rails application. The ULA record of successfully putting dozens of satellites into the _correct_ orbit is important here. Which I don't even think SpaceX has done yet.
Obviously they have a ways to go before they can be considered 'tried and true,' but comparing SpaceX to a couple college kids putting together the next Instagram-for-Cats in their basement is disingenuous, at best.
That's not a failure of the rocket. It's just the operator of the primary mission calling the shots, and the secondary mission suffering as a result of that. That's the sort of risk you assume when you piggy-back on the primary payload when launching on any rocket.
Having a launch option an order of magnitude less than what exists at the moment is pretty important - it means people can build and launch two satellites for the same price.
Planes are so safe today because every failure worldwide increased the regulations for all planes so this can never happen again.
They have a head start, they were able to learn from 66 starts. With every launch SpaceX does they get more reliable.
Right now probably Lockheed, in one or two years SpaceX.
Incrementing the successful launcher counter from 0 to 1 is a huge step. Demonstrating the reliability they've shown with Dragon is another huge step. Lockheed is either concerned (and making plans to remain competitive at a much lower price point), or they're stupid (I'd guess it's the former...)
This company in less than a decade has accomplished what other nation states haven't been able to accomplish in over 50 years of investment in space related research.
The ULA record of successfully putting dozens of satellites into the _correct_ orbit has been arrived at after sucking at the teat of _Government_ contracts for over 60 years. Many many failures preceded their current successful_ record. We are just not keeping tabs.
Maybe we should step back and let the little dogs have a chance at it.
The Europeans, the Chinese, the Indians etc. don't see the ULA as the competition for the future. They see SpaceX as the real competition in the global marketplace.
It's disingenuous to claim SpaceX could have a similar trajectory had they started when ULA started.
I compare the vision and management of an individual, Elon Musk, to bring together the resources necessary to achieve fantastic goals against gigantic bureaucracies that exist to suck up resources without commensurate results.
SpaceX has a vision for the future of mankind and will work towards achieving that goal. ULA has a pipeline to fulfill. SpaceX is just getting started. Apples and Oranges.