While I agree with your general premise, is it fair to call NASA an "independent" authority when they're also a SpaceX customer? In fact many of NASA's own proj

While I agree with your general premise, is it fair to call NASA an "independent" authority when they're also a SpaceX customer? In fact many of NASA's own project timelines depend on SpaceX meeting its development milestones, so there could be some bias in favor of prematurely approving SpaceX projects. I suppose the FAA would be more of an independent authority in that regard, although I'm not sure how much authority they have over space regulations (compared to launch).