I, like almost certainly everyone on the ARocket list, sincerely hope 
that Spacex make a go of things, and that someday not too many decades 
from now, Falcon 99s (or is that 999s) will lift regularly 
majestically from the surface of Mars on their regular return trips to 
earth.

But http://www.comspacewatch.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=19975 would be 
called vaporware if this was the software industry.
There's no mention or even suggestion here of what actually happened 
to "Air Force Demo 1" which was " ... the first responsive launch 
demonstration in March 2006, which was also the maiden flight of 
Falcon 1." (That was presumably Windows 3.0).

  Falcon 1
    DARPA / Air Force Demo 1       Q1 2006  (Launched in March 2006)
    DARPA / Air Force Demo 2       Q4 2006
    NRL / OFT TacSat 1             Q4 2006
    Malaysia RazakSat              Q3 2007
    SpaceDev                       Q2 2008
    MDA Corp                       Q3 2008
    Swedish Space Corp.            Q4 2009

    Falcon 9
    US Government                  Q1 2008
    MDA Corp                       Q2 2008
    Bigelow Aerospace              Q4 2008


More power to them if they can sell meaningful slots to real people. 
And hopefully the makers of Air Force Demo2, who will be feeling 
distinctly nervous by now, will be rewarded for their courage and 
sometime not too long after Q4 2006 see their baby orbiting happily 
overhead.


        RM


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