> I would also hold it as distinct from pure free-market capitalism that can exist outside of government money. (Which, ironically, is a point many people hold against legacy aerospace). And I think that latter point is relevant because SpaceX (and Musk himself) is often held up as some sort of capitalistic ideal and any counterpoint to that makes people bristle. In all, however, I think that hybrid approach is ultimately beneficial to both SpaceX and the public

I think a lot of people dont really get this nuanced distinction. Rockets and spaceships have always been never been built by the government. Most of the work was always done by publically traded companies. NASA, whomever, would put out a contract, and then be involved in high level diretion of the design process.

The difference with SpaceX is that 1) they not publically traded (who cares?) and 2) they dont take design direction from NASA for their rockets, and built what they wanted. Thats it!

The cool part is that they built somthing more ambitious buy cutting NASA out of the design process, and relied on the fact that it will be so good that NASA will want it when they saw it.

My quibble is that this is very different than the classic case of the government spuring new industires. The government was already buying rockets from established manufactures for a half centry. SpaceX just came in and ate other companies lucnhes by being more focused and more efficienct.