The mom and pop space businesses will not be any great saviour to what used to be our preeminent position in space. There are enormous national security issues involved. The Chinese are not going to privatize their efforts.
We will see if SpaceX goes the way of Tesla Motors.
The reality is that the Atlas V, built by Lockheed and Boeing is heavily subsidized by the government. It is just more crony capitalism with cost plus contracts.
The only thing that changed between Space-X and ULA is the procurement process. Space-X can put pounds in orbit for NASA cheaper than Lockheed and Boeing do.
Your old pocket protector cost plus government contracts are gone. It's better and cheaper this way, and NASA gets more bang in space for our dollars.
NASA never built a spacecraft. It's all been private contractors, from day 1.
/johnny
Nope. SpaceX isn't the only company pursuing this, which means competition. Further, SpaceX has committed to lowering the cost of space travel and is providing the lowest per-ton cost to orbit. In other words, it is walking the walk.
I also personally think the SpaceX engineering approach is the best going right now.
If you take a look at the SpaceX flight manifest you'll see there are a lot of non-government customers. I expect with the shining success of this mission SpaceX will see a lot of new contracts with commercial entities.