I see it differently. The killer app is not so much for survival, which can be done without the killer app, but it is for innovation. Right now, the killer apps in the launch industry are the ones that bring down the price for reaching orbit. SpaceX has three killer apps: reusability (reducing per-unit costs), simplicity (reducing operational costs), and availability (better service: launching often with the ability to add to its launch manifest fairly quickly, an app that the Space Force desires for the small launch market). For the launch industry (not industry in general), SpaceX has a fourth killer app: rapid development, which gives them lower development costs and allows them to get new products to market faster than the competition.

Some other launch companies are working on some, most, or all of these killer apps, and they may be working on developing others, too.

Is Firefly one of these companies? We will have to see what the new owners do.

We certainly can’t have those shady characters from Ukraine jeopardizing US National Security. You just can’t trust them or anything they say. Oh, wait a minute…

“We’ll see. Kicking Markusic upstairs might easily be just a preliminary to quietly piping him down the road. Ex-SpaceX-er Lauren Lyons, whom Markusic hired with much fanfare some months ago as COO, left the company with a complete lack of fanfare coincident with the AEI Partners deal. Markusic may turn out to be just the last stitch in a complete upper management transplant for Firefly.”