The US government is a big customer if that’s what you mean. It does not overpay to use spacex (goes with lowest bidder between them an ULA).

You’re vaguely trying to imply that spacex is only kept alive by the government like Arianespace and that’s pretty dumb. It has at least one US competitor to beat on gov contracts and global competitors on non-gov contracts that it consistently takes the cake from on cost.

> Also, nobody outside of SpaceX really knows how much their reusable first stages really saves them.

The implication being what? It spends a fortune on barges and refurbishing as an elaborate hoax or fraud because its not a significant cost saver?

For heavy, as a sibling pointed out, the center stage is reusable. The recent launches paid extra to sacrifice it for orbital parameters. “At the customers request” on the webcast.

Look, I’m all for competition in the launch space because I don’t like monopoly players, but pretending spacex is like the others living on a government feeding tube is laughable.

Here’s the litmus test. Which company wins bids for non-government contracts?