Scary to think where we would be in the space race without SpaceX, while billions were being wasted by NASA contractors every year to achieve very little.
Amazing how different the results can look when you ask the right question. Up until SpaceX the question was: 'can we get something to space?'. The question SpaceX asks is: 'can we build an assembly line to get a regular flow of equipment to space?'
What's crazy is that the people there are plenty smart. When I was a software engineer my company did some contract work for NASA and I felt like a caveman talking to some of the PhDs there especially when the conversation drifted to physics, math and aerospace stuff. So there's just poor leadership and vision.
I guess not unlike many of the very smart people getting paid to do very little in big tech...
It this list full? Don't see there ESA, for example, which has it's own launch capabilities. And do NASA and US Air Force now fully use commercial contracts to launch sattelites, 0% their own launches?