>and there's something very off putting politically about hard-working middle-class families subsidizing ultra-sports cars for the wealthy.

Never thought of that actually. I agree with you, Tesla's going to bomb and the only benefit it made was to entertain the 1% for a while.

Well then, slaves must be really lucky then.

Samuel Goldwyn (1879, 1974) - Died living a lie.

No, it doesn't. Government money is like 90% of SpaceX revenue. If NASA says "I want a Y in your name", they WILL rename themselves to SpaceY.

SpaceX's manifest for this year [1] shows 7 US government launches, 6 commercial launches, and 1 SpaceX-paid R&D launch (Falcon Heavy). Yes the US government is pre-paying for some R&D for Crew Dragon, but no, it doesn't add up to 90% of revenue.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He...

>You could already get a satellite into geostationary orbit for about $70 million -- or rather, you would have been able to, if politics hadn't intervened.

Yeah well, then you couldn't.

>many of those against Elon Musk might feel inferior to him and therefore try to diminish what he has accomplished

that's just something you made up, pal

How much time is 'a very long time'?

I'll forward your question and if I can answer it, I will.