What if the Challenger Disaster never happened? Would SpaceX have even been created?

The Falcon 9 rocket may reach 50 launches on Tuesday

SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 rocket less than a decade ago, in June 2010. Early next week, the California-based rocket company will go for its 50th launch of its workhorse booster. The launch attempt will come as soon as early next Tuesday, 12:33am ET, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

From article, ([W]hat might have happened with the space shuttle program had it not suffered the fatal Challenger accident on January 28, 1986[?] NASA had flown the shuttle nine times the year before, and the space agency had already launched one space shuttle mission in 1986. It is conceivable that NASA could have doubled its 1985 total in 1986, especially with an additional launch site coming online in California.

"If the Challenger disaster never occurred, military and intelligence payloads might have not moved over to expendable launch vehicles as quickly, especially in light of the Air Force being on the verge of expanding shuttle operations for its own purposes from the West Coast," Robert Pearlman, editor of the space history news website collectSPACE.com, told Ars.

Without the accident, the White House might also have allowed the space shuttle to continue launching commercial satellites for paying customers. This means Lockheed Martin and Boeing probably wouldn't have moved forward with development of modern version of their Atlas and Delta rockets.

"Without those moves in place, it is questionable if there would have been a market to sustain the Atlas and Delta flight rates as they came to be," Pearlman said. "And lacking a foundation for a commercial space launch market, one then wonders if SpaceX would ever come to be—or at least be as aggressive in their development as they are today.")

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