Before SpaceX we had Virgin Orbit and Blue Origin, two well-funded ventures that were burning money going nowhere, and a bunch of old big defense companies buil

Before SpaceX we had Virgin Orbit and Blue Origin, two well-funded ventures that were burning money going nowhere, and a bunch of old big defense companies building rockets derived from ICBMs. After SpaceX we have Rocket Lab running a successful smallsat launch service with their Electron rocket, with ambitions for more; Astra making rockets that fit in standard shipping containers (to great interest of military customers); Firefly trying to break into the market of medium lift vehicles and lunar landers; Relativity Space trying to make better rockets with extensive 3d printing; and Stoke Space trying to make medium lift rockets with some whacky engine configurations. And that's just the US, lots of exciting movement in Europe, India and China too. Also let's not forgetting Blue Origin is about to finally launch their first orbital rocket, a design that's clearly inspired by Falcon 9. Sure, maybe of the above only SpaceX and RocketLab can already be called successful launch providers, and SpaceX is like 90% of the US launch market. But even if all the others end up failing, going from old defense companies and failing billionaire's toys to old defense companies, SpaceX, RocketLab and Blue Origin is a massive step up that likely wouldn't have happened without SpaceX