[Eridrus]

SpaceX still has suppliers and employees who will diffuse the knowledge into the rest of the industry eventually.

SpaceX is definitely doing less R&D than the Apollo program, but it's also not eating 1.6% of the federal budget (~$60bn/yr), so I don't think it's fair to expect the same level of R&D.

I think it's also clear that SpaceX is going to drive cost of access to space down for other industries, e.g. telecommunications, surveying, etc, which will against have knock on effects for other industries.