I can think of one commercial case for people in space: servicing existing systems in orbit. There have been a handful of STS missions that involved EVAs to service everything from the Hubble's famous mirror to correcting launch issues with commercial communication satellites like STS-49: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-49

I doubt there's enough of a need for this sort of thing to keep a venture afloat, but manned missions have been flown for commercial purposes in order to service existing spacecraft.

You just need to look further. You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable.

Read https://www.amazon.com/Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Pos...

Also with that short term outlook you wouldn’t have many things. The Internet was not initially commercial. It was designed to provide communications in the event of a nuclear attack. Yet here we are now and we have reaped immense benefits from that investment.

It’s blindingly obvious that spaceflight makes sense to invest in. The issue is that the level of investment is large and the time horizon before a return is long. Sometimes government takes that role.

They said during the launch live broadcast that SpaceX intends to fly paying tourists by next year. Apparently many tourists have also visited the space station.

https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-dragon-will-fly-space-tour...

I think one of the main priorities is military supremacy. It might not appear as that from a bit away, but that should not be overlooked. NASA's boss really highlighted some of that indirectly today as well with the increased funding to build out Space Force and some of that money goes to SpaceX obviously. So commercial, yes, but not like a car. More like a tank or fighter jet.

So many cheeky touches! It's such a different vibe than the NASA launches of old. It's old news but I still was caught off guard by announcers flatly referring to "Of Course I Still Love You"

EDIT this is not a criticism, I really like it. Maybe "cheeky" is the wrong term, I'm bad with Anglicisms

Wouldn't it be "Thank you for flying with Spacex today"?

Yes, the government paid to develop crew dragon. And they buy launch services which is another source of revenue.

The government paid for Apollo. And once they decided they no longer wanted it, it became impossible to use Apollo parts, technology, or any of the engineers or technicians to put people into orbit. The capability "vanished."

If the government never bought another ticket to space, Crew Dragon could be made available to people who want to go into space and are willing to pay for a ticket. So even if NASA got defunded completely tomorrow, the ability to go into space would still be there. Because the market for space, when served in an economic way, is self sustaining.

This has never been true before, and now it is. That is my definition of sustainable.

The sheer cost of launches is much lower on a Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon versus the Shuttle. Amortized per-launch cost for the Shuttle was about $1.5B [0]. The cost of the Demo-2 mission today with 2 astronauts costs $110M [1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget

[1]: This article states the per-astronaut cost paid by NASA on a Crew Dragon mission is $55M, compared to $86M on Soyuz: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/26/spacex-demo-2-nasa-astronaut...

How does something being paid for by the government relate to it being sustainable? Our roads are paid for by the government too - and those are sustainable. So are lots of other things, like basic science research, healthcare in most countries, etc, all of which is sustainable in being paid by government.

SpaceX has brought the costs down a lot. Around $500mil for a shuttle launch.

I think it's pretty transparent that Elon creates controversy and does stunts to get attention. Like many other celebrities he seems to have mastered the art of getting the public to talk about him. It's easier to sell your products or ideas if people are continually talking about you.

How much weight should I give the opinion of someone who calls someone who disagrees with him "the pedo guy"?

It's a serious question. Elon may run some successful companies, but beyond that his credibility has taken a beating on any number of fronts.

How much credit should Elon get for heading companies full of other people who do the actual work? Could another leader do a better job, given Elons unsteady behaviour?

>> Fortunately his companies can live without him now.

This seems quite unlikely in both cases.

SLS and Orion were developed in the 21st century, when there was no need for new basic science research, and their development costs are staggering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Funding_hi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)#Funding_his...

Yes, there were likely other costs, but from NASA's perspective, their costs were way lower. For example, for their first investment of $396M in commercial cargo deliveries to the ISS with SpaceX, they got the development of the Cargo Dragon, the Falcon 9, and the KSC launch site.

While it's undeniable that technological progress has reduced costs for space technologies over the past decades, this has not translated into reduced prices available to NASA. Much of this has to do with cost-plus contracts offered to Boeing, Lockheed, etc. as well as defense-driven propping up of these old-space contractors with little progress to show for NASA programs. What SpaceX is bringing to the table is a significant step up in capabilities offered to NASA at a fraction of the prices offered by Boeing et al.

Must adjust for the grift. Boeing are professionals at this process.

Also because it costs less when you can reuse the booster rocket.