I agree on the form (SpaceX is much more open and less advertish about its tries) and on how late BO is compared to SpaceX' technology. But I feel that would b

I agree on the form (SpaceX is much more open and less advertish about its tries) and on how late BO is compared to SpaceX' technology. But I feel that would be OK if BO hadn't mentioned space tourism in the past. First, getting an assessment of how safe this "holiday travel trip" is compared to going to some exotic place by plane requires a hundred times the number of tests they have made. Compare their two runs to the number of kilometers that Google has driven their autonomous cars. According to Wikipedia, in 2006, they claimed to go commercial in 2010, which tells me they are phenomenally overoptimistic. In the case of space exploration, this is really, really dangerous. Were they to go commercial too soon, a catastrophe implicating civilians could cause a space exploration winter. Musk's vision is more rational. First, control as much of the solar system as possible while putting as few human lives at risk as possible, then, when civilians can live sustainably in another planet, orchestrate a colonization. One part of the article that gives me hope is this: > We’re already more than three years into development of our first orbital vehicle. Hopefully, they'll focus on that instead.