Commercial Spaceflight Mission Firsts

[jtrame]

The first US entity to land an unmanned rover on the Moon may well be commercial.

lunokhod beat them though.

Couldn't be first with lunar manned rover either, heh,heh, that's been done.  But could be first with manned Mars rover.

[oiorionsbelt]

The first US entity to land an unmanned rover on the Moon may well be commercial.

lunokhod beat them though.

Couldn't be first with lunar manned rover either, heh,heh, that's been done.  But could be first with manned Mars rover.

True, but they would have already done a bunch of other firsts long before they got in the rover

[cryptoanarchy]

First reusable first stage. (Spacex soon we hope)
First use of lunar water. (Nobody in mind)
First Martian sample return (red dragon with tiny return rocket)
First ssto. (Spacex could do this now for show small payload, not reusable)
First space tug

[John Charles]

Or just be more specific: first HD lunar camera. First remote control of a lunar rover by the general public. Stuff like that.

Didn't the Japanese lunar satellite already provide lunar HD from orbit? Maybe you meant "from the surface"? It's a matter of degrees, isn't it?

[Lar]

First reusable first stage. (Spacex soon we hope)

Shuttle did this. [1]... see above, I already tried this claim, you have to narrow it some to get it past some folks here [2]

1 - the SRBs were reusable, if you count those as stage 1, or if you count them as stage 0, the orbiter is reusable, and don't quibble about the drop tank please
2 - when I narrowed it, they said it wasn't spaceflight!!! because the stage didn't go high enough... some people!!!   ... good thing this is all in fun

[oiorionsbelt]

First reusable first stage. (Spacex soon we hope)

Shuttle did this. [1]... see above, I already tried this claim, you have to narrow it some to get it past some folks here [2]

1 - the SRBs were reusable, if you count those as stage 1, or if you count them as stage 0, the orbiter is reusable, and don't quibble about the drop tank please
2 - when I narrowed it, they said it wasn't spaceflight!!! because the stage didn't go high enough... some people!!!   ... good thing this is all in fun

Haha yep, Spaceflight in this instance refers to vehicles that operate in space. Mission firsts, means that the vehicle, operating in Space, does something that no other government vehicle has ever done.
 
MSR is valid, 1st stage reuse is not. 2nd stage reuse is marginal but OK

 The intent was to try to envision the first mission, that when done by a commercial entity, would change the general public perception of space exploration. As it is today I believe most would say only governments have the resources for anything beyond comsats.