The Crew Dragon successfully splashed down and was recovered. To all appearances, this flight was entirely successful, meaning that this summer SpaceX *should* start flying manned capsules to the ISS. Once that happens, the US will be a spacefaring nation once again. About friggen’ time.
There are, however, some people who are a little unhappy about this:
Russian editor: Our space program is entering the “Dark Ages”
Russia’s passive-aggressive reaction to SpaceX may mask a deeper truth
Basically, Russia has been resting on their Soyuz laurels for far too long. Once NASA is no longer paying them $400 million a year to launch a few US astronauts to the ISS, Roscosmos is going to have hard time affording the launch of their own cosmonauts. And they don’t really have anything in the pipeline to compete with SpaceX, certainly not in the near term.
Also resting on their laurels are other American launch providers… Boeing, Lockheed, ULA. The Delta IV and Atlas V looked *really* outdated compared to Falcon, and the ULA “Vulcan” launcher, which throws away the whole booster except for a propulsion/avionics module which is to be air-snatched prior to splashdown, is a half-hearted joke compared to the Falcon 9’s recoverable boosters.