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Comment by dshankar | Hacker News Reader

Generally,

    - First gen: NASA, governments
    - Second gen: Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics etc. as contractors
    - Third gen: SpaceX, Orbital, Virgin Galactic as private companies

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Nearly exactly.

   - The first gen was NASA and their subcontractors Boeing, Lockheed, Rocketdyne,
     and other military contractors.
   - The second gen arrived with 'Star Wars' and the need to put lots of 
     things in orbit, Rotary Rocket, the DC-X, and a host of other 
     Single-stage-to-orbit companies.
   - The third stage is SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Armadillo, Etc.

The way the original poster phrased it made it sound like he was referring to three waves of startups.

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