For the last 20 years NASA has intentionally run their Commercial Crew Program, which has the stated goal of developing/fostering/funding the development of commercial providers for launch vehicles.
They, by plan they explicitly laid out and implemented, decided to rely on American commercial providers. And that's what they got. And in doing so, the program ended up producing the most prolific/successful launch vehicle in history.
>> It's only through the miracle of the vanity of billionaires that there's even a realistic second choice (Blue Origin) that might develop
Yes, this is another company which the NASA commercial program explicitly funded in order to get them to develop another launch vehicle.
The question is why does SpaceX stand alone? Why did ULA stagnate? Why can't NG make SRBs that don't have nozzles that fall off? Why can't Betchel build a launch tower on time? What is it about government contracts in these other areas that led to all of this under performance?
The US benefits by having SpaceX around. It would benefit even better by having many SpaceXs around.
Oh, and also I believe it's generally understood that NASA provided very little funding for New Glenn. They gave BO a lot of money for HLS, but that's relatively recent (2023). New Glenn has been in the works since 2013 and was mostly bankrolled by Bezos, with some USAF/DoD money kicked in.
100%, and something that is underappreciated and often taken for granted nowadays, especially on our little forum here.
>>> It would benefit even better by having many SpaceXs around.
That made me chuckle, sounded to me a bit like "our house would benefit from having a few cats around". Perhaps the reason why there aren't too many SpaceX-like companies around is that it's truly among the hardest companies to ever create.