On SpaceX's failure rate, I think I should point out that it was the first 3 that failed, and have learned from each failure. There are too few launches to do s

On SpaceX's failure rate, I think I should point out that it was the first 3 that failed, and have learned from each failure. There are too few launches to do statistics on, but it doesn't seem to me that we can infer from past events that the 6th launch has a 60% failure rate. Cost plus doesn't seem to be helping the situation, but the fact that so much of American space technology is ITAR-controlled seems to be far more detrimental. For those that don't know, ITAR[1] effectively prevents critical spacecraft components from being exported to non-US persons, and even the technical details must be kept secret. All this means is that other countries design and build their own components (including software) from scratch, and American companies can't even compete with them in non-US markets. ITAR is a major hassle, but the consequences are too severe for any company or individual to try to take matters into their own hands (i.e. release ITAR stuff anyways). There needs to be legislation to fix this. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR