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by dogma1138 3691 days ago
But it's not misleading, ULA has a stable launch system with a 100% success rate, SpaceX currently does not.

ULA can also currently life heavier cargo than SpaceX and the most important part is that they do not still tweak the system to "improve".

When SpaceX comes with Dragon9Next and it has 100% success rate you can in effect reset the track record for that platform, you can ignore the company but you cannot ignore the platform. If Dragon Heavy turns out to be 100% reliable after a 100 launches they could be able to play in the same league as ULA but currently they cannot. Launching supplies to the ISS is fine and all, same goes for commercial satellites but some activities especially when it comes to government agencies and manned space flight play by a different rule book of risk metrics and calculations.

The NSA doesn't care about insurance money if it's satellite explodes it cares that it now cannot intercept SIGINT over the south china sea and so the US which could affect US national security, the NRO doesn't care about insurance money it cares about being able to track Russian nuclear silos to make sure that the men who are guarding them are not stealing the warheads to buy potatoes. And when we are talking about manned flight well then considering the enormous costs of training an astronaut, as well the cost of loss of life and the reputation damage that any accident will incur even a 10 times decrease in KG to Orbit costs might not be enough to go with the cheaper but the "less reliable" option.