SpaceX makes successful launch to the ISS!

Somehow I missed this thread. Hot diggity!

Are there any links to recovery? I’d guess they didn’t drive over in a bass boat.
I understand there are future plans for landing with legs on a concrete pad.

Anyone else have the burning desire to give Eton Musk a big hug and “thank you”?

Well, I think the railroad & airline industries got kick-started with fairly massive government contracting, and I don’t have a problem with it in this case at all.

Railroads got a lot of direct government subsidy, including land grants. Early aviation got kick-started by federal contracting, especially military procurement and air-mail service. Early radio and TV were aggressively government-led. You can read the stories and many others in Michael Lind’s new book, Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States.