If they followed the plans right, it should work fine

[jmowreader]

In 1988, the Soviets flew a space shuttle they called Buran on its only orbital mission. They shot the thing into orbit, it went around the earth twice, and they brought it home. Before the flight happened, the American press asked one of the American Space Shuttle Program's engineers how he thought the Soviet vehicle would do. Noting the similar appearance of the American and Soviet shuttles, the American engineer said, "if they followed the plans they stole right, it should work fine."

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9K0EL7G1.htm

Space Exploration Technologies, a private company set to make $1.6 billion flying 12 loads of freight to the International Space Station, flew a test flight yesterday. The press is all agog that a private company could fly a space mission so successfully.

I'm throwing cold water on their celebration.

The private sector has built every rocket the US has ever launched. A private consortium called United Launch Alliance has been launching satellites for years, and successfully. They developed the recovery hardware needed to get a payload back. There is in fact NO reason a private firm couldn't do this.

The reality is, Space-X wouldn't be doing this unless there was money in it for them. Big money--$166 million per launch. (By way of comparison, the Ariane 5--the biggest rocket anyone's using now--costs $120 million per launch. And that's to put a huge bird 22,600 miles above the earth, not a load of cargo in low earth orbit like Space-X is doing.)