I am so excited by this achievement, and offer hearty congratulations to SpaceX and NASA. That said, I think that everyone anticipating a dramatic reduction in

I am so excited by this achievement, and offer hearty congratulations to SpaceX and NASA. That said, I think that everyone anticipating a dramatic reduction in orbital cost needs to temper their enthusiasm a bit. UAL was expensive, as many other have previously noted, because it was a political jobs program. The existence of UAL gave the necessary cover for Musk & Co to envision radically more efficient designs. However, that was then. As SpaceX continues to succeed, it will be harder to justify continued funding of UAL at the previous levels. Costs will be cut. People will cheer. And then, a well-meaning congressperson or two (with their eye on re-election) will introduce a rider onto the next funding bill: "Yes we want these great launch capabilities, but at least $1B must be spent within the state of Alabama" (or whatever). This will work for a little while, but then more members of congress will jump on the gravy train. In order for SpaceX to maintain their launch contracts they will need to perform more and more work in distributed places. This will result in reduced organizational efficiency and increased launch cost. The big opportunity here is commercial launch. If SpaceX can grow their civilian and international order book enough, they become less beholden to the US Govt and can push back on make-work contract requirements. But if not... I await their inevitable induction into UAL v2.