Re: The Future’s Bright
I suppose the silver lining is they are doing it under contract with NASA, not going the entirely lone way of Musk or Branson.
Musk has been raking in a fortune from NASA. When SpaceX was staggering after the near-failure of the Falcon 1 and was trying to develop the Falcon 9, NASA offered SpaceX the COTS contract for cargo delivery to the ISS. NASA flew the DragonEye docking system on the shuttle to test it out for SpaceX (missions STS-127, STS-129, and STS-133). The Crew Dragon / Dragon 2 is also dependent on NASA funding.
SpaceX is just following a long line of private companies in lining up for NASA's contracts. NASA doesn't have a rocket factory, so whether it was flying a Mercury-Redstone (Mercury capsule: McDonnell Aircraft Company, Redstone rocket: Chrysler Aerospace) or landing an Apollo LM (Grumman) on the moon, NASA has depended on private contractors.