To Armadillo, Masten Space Systems, Unreasonable Rocket, The X Prize foundation and all the people in these organization and others! I was watching the webcasts a large portion of the weekend.
A month ago, only one team, Armadillo, had ever done even a lunar lander challenge flight from one pad to another. And now there are three. Never mind multiple flights by Masten, both L1 and L2!
The future might be markedly different from present. How about something like testing space telescope instruments in 100+ km VTVL or HTHL flights? Reliable and routine access to space, even though at start for only a brief time in hops, could change everything. You would get everything back intact. Unlike with sounding rockets where recovery seems often so uncertain…
There are some aerodynamic issues still though that I’ve been expounding on for a long time.