SpaceX scored an enormous success on Friday when the first stage of a rocket launched to the International Space Station landed on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, gently enough to be reused. This has been a central goal for SpaceX since its inception and is a major coup for Elon Musk and his team. Though it's hard to predict exactly how the results will play out, the ripples will be felt at many levels. Here are some of the ways the next few weeks, months and years may play out as a result of what happened Friday.
SpaceX Doubles Down: SpaceX is already scheduled to launch another Falcon 9 rocket this month, and while it may not have the same success in landing this time, the point is already made. The real test will be if this rocket is used a second time without incident. If, and when, that happens, the questions for SpaceX will quickly shift from feasibility to the extent of how it will affect things like cost. Potential clients will ask when, not if, SpaceX can cut launch costs by a third as it has suggested. And with proof it can be done, the designs SpaceX has been working on for other rockets can start transiting into reality.
Rivals Jump On: Success breeds imitation and while Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance and other SpaceX rivals have all talked about reusable engines, the empirical reality that it can be done will only spur them to make it happen faster, even if it's purely to make sure SpaceX can't just underbid them on every launch contract. And competition from these companies is a good thing for the industry as a whole. It encourages innovation, and the way talent jumps around between the rival space companies helps cross-pollinate good ideas.
National Space Policy: SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporation are all part of NASA's Commercial Crew program to build up manned spaceflight capability for Earth orbit missions. But, Congress has continually pushed NASA to prioritize replicating that hardware itself, instead of saving the resources for longer-term plans like missions to Mars. But, if SpaceX can promise that the manned flights it sends up will be even cheaper than the current system, it may be harder for those lawmakers arguing with NASA to maintain that commercial space flight should be essentially ignored, affecting potentially billions of dollars in space and related research and development.
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