> but maybe they should focus on getting one or two people to LEO That seems to be exactly what they're working on. The fact that they may have ambitions beyo

> but maybe they should focus on getting one or two people to LEO That seems to be exactly what they're working on. The fact that they may have ambitions beyond that doesn't mean that they're not working on the immediate problems. They are not conflicting objectives. Although if I was a private space-launch company, I don't know if I would really be working on man-rated spacecraft at all. It seems like too much risk. You can blow up a lot of unmanned payloads and nobody (other than your insurance carrier) will bat an eye; blow up a couple of astronauts and you're probably out of business. I'd want to stay in the cargo delivery business as long as possible, and leave the man-rated stuff to deep-pocketed governments, so that I could continue developing new propulsion systems without the necessary conservatism that a man-rated system requires.