“I think the other launch providers, or most of the other launch providers — certainly the ones are flying now — think that it’s not worth it. That for their particular technology, it doesn’t work for them,” she said. “I think you’ll see that position changing, but it worked for us.”

She also discussed SpaceX’s next big goal: launching and recovering a rocket, turning it around, and then doing it all over again a day later.

“Reusability, we don’t believe it really, really counts unless you can turn it around as rapidly or almost as rapidly as you turn around an aircraft,” she said. “Basically, you land the system, you land the stage, you do some brief but important critical checks and inspections, you refuel, and you re-go. So our challenge right now is to refly a rocket in 24 hours. That’s when we’ll really feel like we got the reusability piece right.”

In addition, SpaceX wants to begin recovering the rocket fairings to further shave cost. It was able to recover one fairing after last week’s launch, but would like to bring them all back, she said.

While SpaceX has is all-in on reusability, other launch providers are more skeptical.

United Launch Alliance, the Lockheed Martin and Boeing joint venture that was the sole Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle provider for years, wants to eventually be able to recapture the Vulcan’s engines, but that won’t happen until the 2020s.

That’s a different economic model that would allow ULA to recoup about two-thirds the cost of the booster compared to SpaceX being able to bring back the entire first stage, but it may result in more overall cost savings, its CEO Tory Bruno told Defense News in an interview.

“When you’re getting a booster back, you get the whole booster, but you can only do it when you didn’t have a very heavy spacecraft, because you have to save fuel to fly home with and if the spacecraft is really heavy, you’re going to burn up all your fuel when you dump it in the ocean,” he said. “Which will be more economically beneficial? We’re going to find out.”

The final version of Vulcan — called Vulcan ACES — could provide an even more exciting opportunity to repurpose previously-launched rockets. The vehicle will have a reusable, refuelable upper stage that can stay in space and conduct other missions for years at a time, Bruno added.

“So it opens up this cislunar economy because you start creating a transportation system in space,” he said. “There are these space pickup trucks all of a sudden.”

Orbital ATK will not pursue reusability in any form for their Next Generation Launch System, preferring instead to lower costs by using common parts and materials with its current rocket line. Mike Laidley, the company’s vice president of space launch programs, contended while SpaceX’s reused Falcon 9 launch makes for great photos, it may not make for the best-value launcher.

“We understand reusability, and reusability is not free. It comes with a cost to recover the asset, to reprocess, to inspect,” he said. “Launch vehicles are unique in the sense that they are really highly tuned. People compare them to aircraft, but aircraft have factors of safety and margin that allow them to fly for a decade or more. Getting out into space and escaping gravity is really hard, and so the margins on those systems are not the same as the margins on aircraft.”

While yesterday’s launch will likely stoke Defense Department interest in reusability, near term impact will likely be limited, said Bill Ostrove, an Aerospace Systems Analyst for Forecast International.

“The Defense Department is very conservative in the way they manage their launch services right now,” he told Defense News on March 31.

“Because launches have traditionally been so expensive, they’ve kind of gotten into a cycle where they pack as many capabilities into each satellite as possible to maximize what is going up with each launch. What that’s created is a situation is a situation where they really have to focus on launch reliability, and that reinforces the high expense of the launches.”

The Pentagon will likely remain in an observation mode while the SpaceX continues testing reusable launch vehicles, waiting for the company to prove that its technology is reliable, said Brian Weeden, director of program planning for the Secure World Foundation.

Even if the military is years away from adopting reusable launch systems themselves, the department may still be able to financially benefit from the commercial sector’s use. SpaceX founder Elon Musk believes he can substantially lower the cost of a Falcon 9 launch — currently valued at about $62 million — “by as much as a factor of a hundred” if the rocket can be flown many times like a commercial airplane.

“Right now we don’t know exactly what SpaceX’s pricing plans are going to be,” Ostrove said. “It would be sort of be a logical move to, if they are going to use a launch vehicle 10 or 15 times, to spread the cost over those 10 or 15 times, rather than the first customer pay full price and then lower prices for everyone else.”

In that model, the Defense Department theoretically could purchase the first launch, with commercial companies purchasing subsequent ones.

But Weeden pointed out that SpaceX launches for the military cost considerably more than for commercial customers because of Pentagon requirements, which demand greater financial oversight as well as additional checks of the launch system itself.

“SpaceX is going to continue to be able to bid on Air Force contracts like the GPS. In theory those might get cheaper over time,” he said. “But even if there are savings there, I don’t think it will have a huge impact. Those savings might be offset by all the additional requirements that DoD already has for those particular launches.”

Additionally, the Falcon 9 launch vehicle doesn’t meet the requirements to carry many military payloads, which tend to be larger and heavier, he said.

“It won’t be until Falcon Heavy comes along until SpaceX itself will be able to say they can launch a lot of the biggest and heaviest national security payloads. And that’s of course still a ways off. And reusability is even further away,” Weeden said.

If the Air Force begins fielding smaller, more disaggregated satellites — an idea officials have championed because of the benefits to survivability — it might also be willing to experiment with reusable rockets because there would be less financial risk involved if a launch failed, Ostrove said.

But it’s unclear what the path forward would look like, he added. The Falcon 9 is already certified for national security missions, but the Pentagon has no precedent for validating reusable launch systems.

“It’s hard to say at this point how extensive of a process they would want do use, if they would want to start from scratch [and certify it] as if it was a new launch vehicle, or treat it like a new variant, which would be a much more abbreviated process,” he said.

SpaceX isn’t the only company pursuing reusability, but it is the furthest along. Blue Origin is developing an orbital launch vehicle called New Glenn, which would have a reusable first stage like the Falcon 9. United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, plans to make the first stage engines of the Vulcan reusable. However, that functionality will not be available for years after its first flight, scheduled for 2019.

As a Republican congresswoman who represented New Mexico from 1998 to 2009, Wilson served on the House Armed Services Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee. Immediately afterward, she was employed by Sandia Corp., a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin that runs the government-owned Sandia National Laboratories, which develops components used in nuclear weapons.

Although Wilson has said she didn’t personally engage in lobbying — which would have been illegal for one year after she left Congress — emails show that she played a critical role in helping Lockheed craft a strategy that allowed Sandia to retain its contract without having to rebid in a competitive environment, the Center for Public Integrity reportedearlier this year. Lockheed paid $4.7 million in 2015 to settle allegations that it had used federal funds to illegally lobby on its behalf.

Wilson made almost half a million dollars working with government nuclear labs from 2009 to 2013, but an investigation by the Energy Department’s inspector general found no evidence that she had provided work. The private firms in charge of the labs reimbursed the government for most of that sum.

It’s unlikely that questions about Wilson’s employment history will derail her probable confirmation by the Senate, and nor should it, Dennett said. Still, SASC should press Wilson about her time with Sandia Corp. and what services she provided the government labs, Dennett added.

“[Wilson] hasn’t proven to be the best steward of money, in addition to generally showing a lack of interest of complying to oversight practices,” she said.

If confirmed, Wilson will serve in the Air Force’s top civilian position as the Pentagon invests about $400 billion a year into nuclear modernization, according to the Congressional Budget Office, potentially to companies for whom Wilson has worked.

The Air Force owns two legs of the nuclear triad, intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear-capable bombers, and plans to begin procuring new versions in the early 2020s. Two major nuclear programs are currently in source selection: the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, which will replace the Minuteman III ICBMs, and the long range standoff cruise missile. Lockheed Martin has expressed interest in bidding on both contracts.