Current and future customers:
Look only at capability, reliability and price. These factors would be ranked according to the customer’s internal risk ratings.

Workforce:
As a means of attracting a talented workforce, then I’d agree that this is a factor for some but not all. Some would simply be there for the engineering challenge, not necessarily because of the long-term vision.

Funding:
Doubtful. Most funding is internal, some venture capital or via existing customers.

Cheers.

Now extapolations based on the above:
1. No known obstacles have appeared in the testing regime other than the spin issue which I’m assuming has been characterised and solved.
2. Even if they get behind on their manifest, they will still have a number of available flights for continued attempts.
3. Land test late this year (my prediction but I’m an optimist and a SpaceX fan) and I agree, it’s gotta be during the day for posterity.

Cheers.

Possible reactions as I see it available to competing governement and commercial entities: attempt to compete by moving into R&D of reusables and new vehicles/engines or attempt political protectionism or some mix of both.

We can already see ESA taking the former stance while ULA is taking a govenment protectionist position. Japan, China, Russia and India will I predict simply maintain the status quo as government programs and not attempt to compete or quite possibly a mixed approach.

Personally I believe that if SpaceX is successful with even 1st stage reusables for F9 and FH, then they will own most of the commercial market. No one else will be able to come close to matching their pricing. This of course assumes no major setbacks and continuing demonstration of vehicle reliability.

Of note is that the timelines being considered are no doubt likely to extend both for SpaceX and ESA since they are the only ones currently reacting to the SpaceX threat. It is interesting to observe that it would appear that SpaceX competitors have left their run very late. They probably have more resources however less focus. SpaceX probably has less resources however they have a high degree of focus and adaptability to changing circumstances.

Of further note is that building market share for SpaceX is not simply about profitability but about fulfilling the company’s mission: to help make humanity a space faring civilisation. No other company in the business is driven by this ideal. In fact no government agency is either.

A final comment. IIRC Elon has stated that he would prefer a private/public partnership for his Mars objective. So far that doesn’t seem very likely however should it look like SpaceX could achieve this without government aid, I believe you’d see one or more countries putting their hands up to be involved. Just an opinion.

Shotwell is taking an interesting rhetorical line here- the implicit expression of confidence with a statement about land-based recovery in 2014 contrasted with a reminder of task’s difficulty. This is language one uses when your organization is very confident they’ll be successful but because you haven’t done it yet, you need to publicly project a bit of modesty.

I’m predicting 2nd half of 2015…and -here’s the nuance- I’m predicting it’ll land in the daylight. The reason is that a return to a landing pad will be heralded as a historic advancement in rocketry and in order to look historic, you need video and proper video of an event like this will only be possible in regular daylight.

So between this and bands launching orbiting satellites to unlock music on iPhones, it continues to be interesting watching.