These government inefficiency arguments seem to ignore the fact that NASA relied significantly on the small handful of large Aerospace companies, yet those comp

These government inefficiency arguments seem to ignore the fact that NASA relied significantly on the small handful of large Aerospace companies, yet those companies seem not to be involved in the private ventures that require expanding capabilities. I would look at the traditional space industry as similar to any unmotivated ~duopoly that is working in an industry with a pretty fixed income. Suddenly they look more like other problem sectors (say US cable internet? US cell? English Trains?) In those industries the only possible improvements are from government interference or public shaming with comparisons to efficient markets abroad. The monster in the room is that traditional government outsourcing is a model for constructing monopolies and trusts. The government avoids the complexity of proportionally paying a dozen companies for the same task and few companies can handle the complexity of working for the government. Once created these trusts/monopolies that can't compete for rational customers must still expand at 9% a year and are "too big to fail" and so based on lobbying that the question of failure could never come up. Outsourcing the government is like packaging up "government inefficiency" with sector destroyers and some legal skimming off the top. I would predict that as soon as one of these new companies is successful they will be sued for all the IP the big aerospaces refuse to use, then acquired, and then shelved.