More detail for the politics side in my reply to lhnn, perhaps. My contention is that corporations are simply not designed to accomplish the same things as governments, and expecting them to do so is naive. But you said some other interesting stuff, so I'd rather ditch the politics and go back to space. So much ... quieter.
> I'll say that the fact that a private entity accomplished this feat is very significant exactly because it represents a step towards the democratization of space travel.
Buzzword alert! I catch your gist, though. SpaceX's accomplishments bring us closer to the idea of people being able to go to space "just cuz" - the ability to buy a ticket. Ok, agreed. But I'll still content that the enthusiasm displayed here and on reddit is far out of proportion. Even within the small arena of private, LEO spaceflight, this isn't the moment I would pick as the important one. SpaceX's first launch, maybe. Or the first commercial cargo in space. Or the first commercial human in space (yet to happen, I think?). But this? It doesn't make sense to me.
Can they really? I personally disagree. I believe that it is always the nature of governments to grow larger, more evil, more bureaucratic and more corrupt, until they are - by necessity - overthrown and replaced by the next iteration.
As for your disdain of corporations... I'll remind you that corporations are an artificial legal fiction that depend on the State for their very existence. They are however, arguably more accountable to the populace at large, who can vote with their dollars when it comes to interacting with said corporations. Governments, on the other hand, hold for themselves a monopoly on the "legal" use of force, and are ultimately not accountable at all. Witness the governments that have suspended elections, imposed "marshal law" or otherwise pre-empted the democratic process in the name of some "emergency" or other. Reichstag fire, anybody?
Anyway, to keep this remotely on topic, I'll say that the fact that a private entity accomplished this feat is very significant exactly because it represents a step towards the democratization of space travel. No longer will the State be in the position of determining who can and can't go into space, and picking a handful of elites to send up. Now, space travel is cheap enough that it no longer requires the trappings of the State... we're one step closer to space tourism, to a day when travelling into space is accessible to a large percentage of the population, and to a day when we decide who goes into space, as opposed to a few bureaucrats deciding. That is a big-deal as far as I'm concerned.
Disclaimer: I'm about as libertarian / voluntaryist / anarcho-capitalist as you can get.