I agree. But, we probably shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Musk has grown his SpaceX business on the backs of US Taxpayer...not unlike his Tesla business, it shouldn’t be forgotten.
SpaceX enjoys ENORMOUS contracts with DoD and engineering support from the US Air Force and NASA. They’ve been given access to top secret US technologies as a defense contractor. Virgin, OTOH has done it largely all on their own using a novel launch platform. I believe the only taxpayer support they’ve received is whatever tax benefits the state of California offered and a very, very modest technology development contract with NASA (think a few million dollars).
True about Musk’s financing. Of course, there would have been a whole lot of unemployed space experts without someone carrying on.
But, we probably shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Musk has grown his SpaceX business on the backs of US Taxpayer...not unlike his Tesla business, it shouldn’t be forgotten.
So you would prefer that we continued to pay the Russians to take our astronauts and cargo up to the ISS? Or that, to this day, we continue to buy Russian RD-180 rocket engines to power some of our rockets?
I think that you are forgetting that Musk did not receive a single cent from NASA or the US government while he ‘developing’ his Falcon rockets. He got NO engineering or technical support from NASA. In fact NASA did everything they could to cripple him and slow him down.
He had to pay millions of dollars just to be able to use a launch pad at the Cape. No support services of any kind, just to use the pad itself. Then he was required to refurbish the pad after every launch.
The only real technical support he got was by hiring laid-off and retired NASA engineers. And SpaceX workers have found their tires slashed while working at the Cape.
No, the money/contracts from the US government only came after Musk spent almost $400 million of his own money to develop the Falcon series of rockets. Only then did NASA very reluctantly start to use SpaceX.
As far as Branson goes, how many astronauts does he plan to deliver to the ISS in the next year?
How many tons of supplies?
How’s Branson Moon Lander development coming along?
There’s really no comparison between Musk’s and Branson’s projects.