This might be a hot take here, but for all of Elon's overhyped flops like the Hyperloop and car tunnels, the Falcon 9 does have the lowest launch cost per kg out of any rocket and is the only family of orbital rockets with a demonstrated reusable propulsive landing system. That's not to say they'll have the lead forever since there's a fundamental limitation of private enterprise, but currently they're ahead in several important ways.
I'm convinced that the Falcon rockets are so success (in part) because Musk was too busy fucking around with Tesla, Starship, etc. to fuck around with the Falcons.
What you won't find a lot of people talking about his how Falcon 9 got its wings, and how it's stayed ahead since. It's one of the most impressive rockets in history, don't get me wrong, but it was paid for by the state, just like other impressive rockets like the Saturn V and Soyuz.
SpaceX got its start with CIA venture capital money (In-Q-Tel). That same CIA connection, Michael Griffin, then became NASA administrator and magically made the first contract with SpaceX happen, saving the company and Musk from otherwise certain bankruptcy. Griffin, in a Trump administration position, would later award Musk a contract for the military use of Starlink satellites as well.
I think the main things SpaceX has brought to spaceflight is the lean manufacturing and lean development model, and related to that the risk acceptance to even attempt propulsive landing and the type of reusability Falcon has achieved. All of which could have been done by public institutions as well, but weren't because the Soviet institutions were gutted after the coup and the US has only ever done spaceflight as a MIC affiliated public-private for-profit partnership.
This might be a hot take here, but for all of Elon's overhyped flops like the Hyperloop and car tunnels, the Falcon 9 does have the lowest launch cost per kg out of any rocket and is the only family of orbital rockets with a demonstrated reusable propulsive landing system. That's not to say they'll have the lead forever since there's a fundamental limitation of private enterprise, but currently they're ahead in several important ways.
I'm convinced that the Falcon rockets are so success (in part) because Musk was too busy fucking around with Tesla, Starship, etc. to fuck around with the Falcons.
What you won't find a lot of people talking about his how Falcon 9 got its wings, and how it's stayed ahead since. It's one of the most impressive rockets in history, don't get me wrong, but it was paid for by the state, just like other impressive rockets like the Saturn V and Soyuz.
SpaceX got its start with CIA venture capital money (In-Q-Tel). That same CIA connection, Michael Griffin, then became NASA administrator and magically made the first contract with SpaceX happen, saving the company and Musk from otherwise certain bankruptcy. Griffin, in a Trump administration position, would later award Musk a contract for the military use of Starlink satellites as well.
I think the main things SpaceX has brought to spaceflight is the lean manufacturing and lean development model, and related to that the risk acceptance to even attempt propulsive landing and the type of reusability Falcon has achieved. All of which could have been done by public institutions as well, but weren't because the Soviet institutions were gutted after the coup and the US has only ever done spaceflight as a MIC affiliated public-private for-profit partnership.
Yeah for sure, almost all of the US' most impressive accomplishments were state funded. Privatize the profits, socialize the costs.