spacex has a nice lead, for sure - and they're a lot cheaper than most of the competition - but where there's profit there will always be competition. especia

spacex has a nice lead, for sure - and they're a lot cheaper than most of the competition - but where there's profit there will always be competition. especially as the tech base matures and folks in the industry job hop and start their own companies (much like how silicon valley was, back in the day). nice little teaser there about gutting nasa, not sure where that came from. nasa has a hell of a legacy and they do a lot of good science but nasa needs to let go of the leo and earth/luna part of the space program because they cant compete with spacex (and neither can boeing) - they need to focus on telescopes, interplanetary probes, and the next upgrade to the deep space network. man in space is doable, it's been doable for 50+ years, but it's never been cost effective and it still isnt - we're close, but we arent there yet. hell, there's still pushback when a probe launches with an RTG - Mars will need fission reactors and so will anything past the Jovian system (until fusion becomes a thing and then gets miniaturized enough).