[TalonDJ]

“SpaceX has privately done a lot of heavy-lifting (no pun intended) in getting to where it’s at. “

Oh please. Their leftist owner has gotten BILLIONS from government contracts. Calling anything they have done ‘private’ is a joke. The only thing they can claim all of is the PR. Only not even that, since the leftist media plays them up. Have they done cool stuff? Sure. But it wasn’t much more ‘private’ that the Apollo program.

[wjr123]

The railroads got the equivalent in billions from the government. The semiconductor industry would not exist without billions from the government (and a little incentive from the Russians back in the day). The automotive companies would not be all that much without billions and billions invested in infrastructure.

On and on we go with a lack of understanding of how large scale technology is developed and works. Government is needed for blue sky risk and then needs to get out. When it works that way we get an Intel, When it does not we get a VA system.

[af_vet_rr]

I was referring more to the fact that they aren't joined at the hip to the government like Boeing is. Nothing against Boeing - I did some contract/consultant work there, and liked the people I worked with, but right now, outside of Boeing, SpaceX is it. It remains to be seen whether Jeff Bezos will be able to match SpaceX or Boeing.

As for the money for the contracts - would you rather we continue shamefully dumping money into Russia's government to carry our astronauts/supplies into orbit?

I do like the simplicity and reliability of Russia's Soyuz - that has been and continues to be an extremely reliable system, but I'd rather we at least dump American tax dollars into American companies, because the Russians are not our friends.

[Ozark Tom]

ULA has received a $Billion subsidy every year for launch services. Boeing and Lockheed and other partners got tens of billions for the Constellation space program and the Space Launch System. They were not able to deliver new launch vehicles. They received upwards of fifty times the money given to Spacex to help Spacex develop the Falcon rockets.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/09/ron-paul-in-the-pocket-of-united-launch-attacks-defense-dept-and-spacex.html

https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/09/when-will-boeing-lockheed-martin-lose-1-billion-su.aspx