First ever private rocket to space station in launch delay

Cheese!

Sending cheese to the moon (space) is a bit like sending coals to Newcastle.

Obviously

Cheese in space, it has to be Wallace and Gromit.

"So which other private companies (other than satellite TV providers) has sent cheese into space and back?"

Why, the creators of Wallace and Gromit, of course.

@Poor Coco

Silly boy. They went to the moon to *get* the cheese, so they didn't take any cheese into space with them. Don't make me set Feathers McGraw on you...

"...he'd be happy to open up his books by making preparations for an IPO..."

That would be the worst thing SpaceX could do at this juncture...

I think one of the reasons that access to space is currently so expensive is because we rely too much on big, behemoth-esque, publicly-traded aerospace companies with inefficient labour structures, and whose shareholders demand cushy dividend payments. This forces an emphasis on market performance as opposed to engineering performance, with contracts written so governments are forced to pay millions (perhaps even billions) in contract cancellation fees when projects are cancelled before reaching their goals. All of these things combine to drive up the cost/unit mass to climb the gravity well.

The only way to make access to space affordable to the masses is to allow open-market competition, and to encourage companies to make engineering investments that deliver "keep-it-simple-stupid-we've-already-built-it-and-proven-it-works" products for sale.

IPOh No!

Taking SpaceX into the realm of publicly traded companies is most definitely a very bad idea, especially with Mars set firmly in Elon Musk's sights.

Publicly traded companies are run by board members who try to pad their wallets as much as possible, and shareholders scream for returns and dividends. Staying private means you can invest all your profits back into R&D, which in a business built around spaceflight is an EXTREMELY important thing. The more money you pump back to shareholders is less money spent developing the next engine or flight control system, or whatever.

And if SpaceX want's to be the first to set boots on Mars (which at this point in time, SpaceX has my bet that they WILL be the first), then once again, being private means you can build the thing, paid for by what isn't being used for R&D or what might be handed over to shareholders.

My hat is off to Elon for building the company to where it is, but it needs to stay the way it is or risk becoming a target for a hostile takeover and being absorbed by one of the existing overweight overly bureaucratic space industry incumbents.

*Flame: Nice looking engine test there!