That being said, we should take a step back and stop drinking the Elon Musk Koolaid. This has been done flawlessly by Russian Soyouz hundreds of times over the last decades (with almost no failures). This has also been done with the Shuttle.
Prior to this, the USA did not have the capability to transport astronauts to orbit without working with Russia, and if Russia were to just decide no longer to cooperate for arbitrary diplomatic reasons, we'd be screwed. As you know, the shuttle program was halted some time ago and the vehicle was a total cow the whole time it was in service.
So whereas this has been done before on a technical level, this represents a substantial increase in the USA's actual present space capability, and a major step in reversing the decline of the USA's competence in space.
737 first flight was in 1967.
Both B-52 and Tu-95 first flights were in 1952, both still in service today.
Sometimes problem is solved, and there is no need to solve it again, it would be insane for Russia to abandon Soyuz and develop something new at huge cost.
- SpaceX already sent multiple times almost the same capsule to the ISS before for cargo. Today's launch is just a small modification of those ones.
- Soyuz is mundanely sending astronauts all the time to ISS.
No it wasn't. I think you misunderstand what today's mission was about and what it opens for the future. Today's launch was a major departure from Normal SpaceX Activities. Launching a human-rated capsule to space is no "small modification".
> Soyuz is mundanely sending astronauts all the time to ISS.
They have exactly zero (0) vision or plans or constructed spaceships intended to start a Mars Colony. This makes SpaceX activities different from Russia activities in a pretty clear way. When SpaceX achieves a milestone it's a direct stepping stone to colonizing Mars. When Russia sends cosmonauts to the space station, they are sending cosmonauts to the space station and have no future plans. The two things are very different.
This is a private company.
Elon is the CEO but this victory is about the SpaceX team, not him.
One thing I remind myself is that Elon really didn't start Tesla. He's been snow balling off initial success and continues to accelerate thanks to collaboration with brilliant people.
Elon didn't start Tesla but he wanted to start a car company when he heard that another company had just started with the same idea so he joined them instead.
Since then he saved Tesla by taking over and investing his own money.
> He's been snow balling off initial success and
I'm sorry but that is just insane. The company was not very successful when he took over, so 'snow balling of early success' is just nonsense.
> continues to accelerate thanks to collaboration with brilliant people.
So like all successful business people/inventors in the history of the world?