This is John Batchelor, a conversation with my colleague Bob Zimmerman about what if.

What if Musk had not gone for that fourth test back in 2007 for the Falcon?

What if he had not won that contract because of that fourth test?

He was running out of money.

Won that contract from NASA.

Bob comes bluntly to the point. When I try to put a good

face on it, Bob says we'd be stuck with nothing. It's Bob Zimmerman to explain how close we came

to drifting away from any hope of the moon and Mars in the first decade of the 21st century.

And now, and Bob wants more.

He tells you.

He wants more companies and their new prospects.

Here's Bob Zimmerman on the future, thanks to how close we came to losing it.

More of this tonight.

We're not stuck with either.

We would be stuck with nothing right now.

We would still be depending on the Russians to launch our astronauts to ISS.

We'd have no way to do almost anything.

So it's not, it's Musk's the savior, but Musk should be the only one.

We need other companies to come in here, and I'm very glad Blue Origin has finally launched its new glen,

and I'm very glad that Rocket Lab is beginning to move up to be a bigger competitor.

This is all good.