The sector before solely consisted of a few government agencies. He showed that a private company can operate successfully in that space, which many doubted before. That he can be cheaper is then not much of a surprise, government agencies have little incentive to be as efficient as possible.

Tunnels are different, it's already done solely by private companies and there is some competition. Beating a Swiss company will be harder than a EU or US government agency.

> The sector before solely consisted of a few government agencies.

Not at all. This seems to be a common misconception. NASA, the USAF and the Navy have never built a launcher themselves.

The US Army did, in the late 40s and 50s.

ULA wa s private but government supported. They coild have competet in the international launch market but largly didnt.

While tunneps are private, not many pivate companies come up with new transportation systems.

I don't know a lot about SpaceX but I think I read somewhere he wanted to buy a rocket, and the price given to him was insane, so he looked up how to make a rocket and figured he could do it for less than the cost of buying one, and then after reducing costs decided it also needed to be reusable.

That's more or less what happened. The supplier of the rockets were Russian and they basically screwed with him. And now, SpaceX.

If you can't beat them?