18 years ago today, SpaceX made it to orbit And it changed the future forever After three failed Falcon 1 launches, the company was running out of money and the pressure was enormous.... barely scraping together enough for the fourth launch Elon put everything left on one last flight...he was ready to lose everything trying to make it to orbit Elon Musk and the SpaceX team had one final chance.... before bankruptcy Elon later said: "that was the last money that we had for Falcon 1 – the fourth launch worked, or that would have been it for SpaceX" They rented a C-17 to fly the rocket to Kwajalein instead of spending weeks shipping it by sea On September 28, 2008, Falcon 1 reached Earth orbit and became the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to achieve this milestone That single success kept SpaceX alive The same company that once struggled to reach orbit launched Starship today, and it reached orbit for the first time, a huge milestone for the future of human space exploration One launch changed everything