> Judging them against the competition seems fair but that's not the goal post they set for themselves. Honest question, why does it seem fair to judge them ag

> Judging them against the competition seems fair but that's not the goal post they set for themselves. Honest question, why does it seem fair to judge them against the goal they set for themselves rather than what they've achieved? To take the reverse example it means you should judge people really highly when they set really simple goals and then exceed the very simple goal. That doesn't seem very reasonable. And to be clear, that goal you're talking about is the goal of SpaceX overall, not Falcon 9 specifically. The goal for Falcon 9 this year was 100 launches. They're on track to reach 96 or 97 this year, they're at 94 so far. I don't remember any plans to give Falcon 9 airline operations, unless you go back really far (around a decade ago) when there was still plans for Falcon 9 upper stage reusability.