> Musk is the primary contractor for ISS contracts and given the shit show that Boeing has turned into it's safe to call him the exclusive contractor for ISS contracts.
Just because they're doing fine now, doesn't mean we want to give SpaceX a monopoly in the future.
Reminder: SpaceX was not a thing a few years ago, and NASA throwing money at them could have been considered 'wasteful' when there was a solution that worked already. We are where we are now because the government spread the money around a bit: some of those 'bets' worked out, some did not.
The commercial crew program started in 2011, the same year that the Space Shuttle was retired. From 2011 to 2020 (when SpaceX first sent astronauts to the ISS) we were 100% dependent upon Russia. That's undesirable not because of Russia, but because it's plainly ridiculous for any superpower to not have the power to independently send humans to space! SpaceX also won the exclusive contract for commercial crew. Boeing managed to get this overridden with political connections forcing NASA to not only also accept their bid but to pay their dramatically larger asking price.
All that aside, I actually agree with you in principle! The SpaceX of tomorrow will not necessarily be the SpaceX of today. And having a space economy full of good healthy competition is a great thing for everybody, including SpaceX. But this was not a case of that. This was just an old dysfunctional company relying on some old corrupt politicians to butter some bellies.
Blue origin is doing pretty well. Got partly reusable rocket to orbit recently. NASA has no reusable rocket in development. This is fine, as the private market is doing it, but SLS needs to be retired soon. Maybe after the manned moon landings?
Just because they're doing fine now, doesn't mean we want to give SpaceX a monopoly in the future.
Reminder: SpaceX was not a thing a few years ago, and NASA throwing money at them could have been considered 'wasteful' when there was a solution that worked already. We are where we are now because the government spread the money around a bit: some of those 'bets' worked out, some did not.