Leaving aside SpaceX's scammy projects like the Hyperloop and the idea of changing aviation with rockets, Space X has been underdelivering for a while. In particular (and this is what I was referring to), SpaceX received a contract to deliver the moon lander for NASA"S Artemis program in 2025.
They have received almost all the money granted by the contract, and they have not delivered any of the main steps necessary to deliver the moon lander. No rapid orbital reuse, no cryogenic storage, no orbital refueling, no extended live support, no deep space engine reliability...
Is SpaceX doing the same kind of stuff NASA was doing before, but cheaper? Maybe for some things, but if you look at how much money taxpayers pay to send a person to space, it is around 70 millions. Before the Russians were the only ones doing it, it cost about 20 million to send a person to the ISS
When the Russians were the only ones doing it, they charged about 80 million dollars per person. So, how much is Space X charging? For SpaceX Dragon, it was about 70 million per person. It's better than the Russians who had a monopoly, but barely.
I'm not enough in the loop to judge if this is nitpicky or a substantial criticism (in which case I've embarrassed myself). It just seemed a bit strange to extend the criticism of Elon Musk's power abuse (which is bad) to Elon Musk's companies (which I was under the impression are good).
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