What if SpaceX had actually went bankruptcy in 2008?

[aqarwaen]

What if SpaceX had actually went bankruptcy in 2008?
have you ever wondered who had then taken over if SpaceX went bankruptcy?what would be today different if spaceX had actually went bankruptcy in 2008?

[Mr. Scram]

What if SpaceX had actually went bankruptcy in 2008?
have you ever wondered who had then taken over if SpaceX went bankruptcy?what would be today different if spaceX had actually went bankruptcy in 2008?

SpaceX would be gone if it went bankrupt in 2008. It would have been just another unrealistic silly adventure by a dreamer billionaire who didn't understand space isn't the internet.

[David Hess]

I am surprised ULA's bought congressmen were not able to kill SpaceX however I suspect they did not see SpaceX as a threat until it is too late.  They certainly tried.

In answer to your question, the result would have been ULA collecting larger rents.

[KE5FX]

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. 

[Red Squirrel]

My guess is another company would just have taken their place.  Maybe Amazon (they do have a space division although not very active) Virgin, or Boeing. 

[rdl]

I think it's a good thing that SpaceX happened. America's space efforts were stagnated before they showed up. The big aerospace companies sucked down massive amounts of taxpayer money while prolonging projects as long as possible. Just take a look at the mess called SLS. The sooner that goes away the better.

By the way, Boeing is part  of ULA.

[SiliconWizard]

What would be different? Not sure, but probably no launch from american soil in 2020. Probably not even in 2025.

[schmitt trigger]

I am surprised ULA's bought congressmen were not able to kill SpaceX however

That is the reason that many people nowadays refer to the Military-Industrial Complex with its updated, more accurate name: Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.

Without the funding from Congress, the other two would simply wither.

[chris_leyson]

If SpaceX's fourth Falcon launch had failed and SpaceX had gone bankrupt then space agencies would be paying a lot more to get supplies and astronauts to the space station as well as paying a lot more for low earth orbit and geostationary satellite lauches. We would have to rely on launch vehicles like Atlas, Delta-iV, Soyuz or Ariane-5 with Soyuz doing all the human rated launches. ULA is not far behind with Atlas and Boeing's Starliner, so if it were not for SpaceX we would be using Soyuz and maybe Starliner for human rated flight.

The way things are looking space will be the internet and I think Elon Musk recently forecast that Starlink would make $30Billion a year, more than enough to fund Starship. OneWeb have just filed with the FCC to put 48,000 satellites into low earth orbit despite filing for bankrupcy, so space and the internet are not going to go away any time soon.

Everybody said that SpaceX couldn't build and fly reusable harware but they've done it and that has brought down launch costs by a hell of a lot.