Its easy to tell if an firm is a government contractor. They must deal with a government contracting officer and meet the various E.O. for government contractors. If SpaceX is doing both it is a government contractors.

As for cost-plus contracts. Firms like Boeing and Lockheed started out like SpaceX many decades ago thinking they could seel to the government like any other customer. There long scars, financial and legal, are why the have the policies in place now for dealing with the government and why they psuh for cost-plus contract. SpaceX will move to pushing for cost-plus as well once they get burned a few times by NASA.

The only different between New Space and Old Space is that New Space hasn’t learned the hard lessons of having the government as you prime customer that Old Space has. They will.

Now I must be off to the desert to do some work on one of those non-government contractors contracts with the government that is keeping them in business, and paying my salary. Enjoy your debate with Anon.

Which is exactly why we need New Space.

I don’t. It’s those who accuse SpaceX of having become one who are doing that. There is nothing wrong with being a cost-plus contractor (other than the fact that one would be foolish to expect any cost-saving innovation from them), but the fact remains that SpaceX is not.

And wasn’t the purpose of COTS to use NASA money to create lower cost solutions to space launch? To subsidize their development? So why are you now trying to make it seem like it was an unnecessary subsidy of New Space. That a New Space firm like SpaceX would have done fine without it?

I’ve never denied that COTS accelerated SpaceX’s development schedule. My beef is with people who claim that in its absence SpaceX would be making no progress at all, or even out of business (with the implication that no one can make it in the space business without NASA money). If COTS was “necessary,” it was necessary for NASA, which needs some way to continue to support station after Shuttle retires, not for New Space, which has its own funding sources and schedules, even if they don’t necessarily support NASA’s needs.

One more time–Elon was funding SpaceX before COTS, and before anyone conceived of COTS, and in its absence, there’s no reason to think that he wouldn’t have continued to fund it. He’s not stupid, or ideological, and he’s happy to take money from wherever he can find it, if the strings aren’t too numerous and onerous, but that doesn’t mean that he’s dependent on it. Whether or not SpaceX would be doing “fine” without it is a matter of how one chooses to define that word, but it would be moving forward.

Your definition from the “aerospace” world would not stand up in court. And it seems only a common definition among New Spacers, not the aerospace industry.

You know there is nothing shameful about being a government contractor. Why do you treat it like its a mark of shame?

And no one said the government is their only customer (SLICK MOVE…), merely that its a critical one to the success of their business model.

Note his only commercial customers are for the Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 is being driven by the COTS schedule, so without COTS Falcon 9 would not be available as soon as it will be to the commercial firms. So YES, it appears his government contracts did close his business case. Now he just has to get the Falcon 9 operational.

Honestly do your really believe Elon would be working on the Falcon 9 today, building and preparing it for launch, if he hadn’t gotten COTS? It would have probably stayed on the back burner while he solved the problems with the Falcon 1. Remember that was his stated plan Before COTS.

And wasn’t the purpose of COTS to use NASA money to create lower cost solutions to space launch? To subsidize their development? So why are you now trying to make it seem like it was an unnecessary subsidy of New Space. That a New Space firm like SpaceX would have done fine without it?

My .02

No.

That SpaceX is working with a contracting officer on COTS is additional proof they are a government contractor.

The issue is not whether or not they are a government contractor. The issue is whether or not they are only a government contractor, and lacking COTS, would not be in business. Some here insist that’s the case. I say that it’s nonsense, or at least, it’s unprovable unless one takes COTS away and sees what happens. And the implication is that they have become “just another government contractor” which, in the aerospace world, tends to imply cost plus.

Are you honestly claiming that COTS was done under FAR 12?

It was not done under FAR 12, since a competition was held by NASA to select the most qualified bidder for COTS funding. This means it is not considered a commercial service under FAR making SpaceX is a government contractor. That SpaceX is working with a contracting officer on COTS is additional proof they are a government contractor.

Note that a cost-plus contract is only one model for government contracts, it is not nor never has been the only one under FAR and a cost-plus contract is not what defines a government contractor under FAR or common usage. Like Anon you are inventing your own defintiions to suit yourself.

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It makes no sense to “admit” something that is not true.

Elon Musk did attempt to find commercial markets, but the only one he found was the Comsat market Lockmart and Boeing have been servicing for decades.

Government launches are commercial markets, as long as they’re not provided on a cost-plus basis (that’s the key difference between a “government contractor” and a service provider). And he still has Bigelow as a potential customer.

Elon Musk did attempt to find commercial markets, but the only one he found was the Comsat market Lockmart and Boeing have been servicing for decades. So he did the only thing he could do to salvage his investment and went for the green check like XCor and other in the New Space industry are doing.

Maybe someday there will be a revolution, but for now New Space survival depends on government spending and or billionaires with the space bug.