[mikeash]

I just figured that Virgin Galactic doesn't have nearly the resources that SpaceX had or has. Getting stuff into orbit with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend would be easier than getting stuff into sub-orbit with peanuts to spend.

But then I checked Wikipedia and:

"After a claimed investment by Virgin Group of US$100 million, in 2010 the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, Aabar Investments group, acquired a 31.8% stake in Virgin Galactic for US$280 million, receiving exclusive regional rights to launch tourism and scientific research space flights from the United Arab Emirates capital. In July 2011, Aabar invested a further US$100 million...."

On the SpaceX side, according to this page, SpaceX spent $390 million developing Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, total:

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/05/31/nasa-analysis-falcon-...

I don't know what the difference is. Maybe this is another example of how people should stop trying to use airplanes to get to space.

[xanderstrike]

The difference probably has to do with the fact that SpaceX has a functional revenue model beyond what's essentially a pre-order. Further down in the Wikipedia article for SpaceX, as of 2012 they had taken in over $4 billion in lifetime revenue. Also, they got a $1 billion investment from Google and Fidelity in exchange for 8.333% of the company this past January.

I think the answer really is money, SpaceX has more of it because it has built a product it can actually sell right now.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#Funding

[mikeash]

That seems backwards. They didn't have ongoing revenue until they proved themselves capable. Their early days were a similar situation to Virgin Galactic now, but, apparently, with even less money and doing harder stuff.