[jccooper]

If SpaceX succeeds in significantly reducing launch costs, then they will enable a tremendous increase in all sorts of science (and industry, but you're talking about science.) There's tons of stuff to learn outside of Earth's gravity well, but right now we're restricted by the absurdly high cost of getting there. Most of the money now spent in all areas of activity that take place off-Earth is spent on or because of the high cost of getting there: launch services, making the machines light enough to launch affordably; making them robust enough to survive without maintenance; making them super-fancy to justify the cost; doing lots of simulations because you can't afford to test in the real environment.

For one small example: Space is by far the best place to put observatories. Yet only a few special--and small ones--are there. What if observatories were routinely space-based?

SpaceX may not be doing the science themselves, but have the capability to act as a huge multiplier to those who are doing it. A much higher multiplier than any feasible amount of money shovelled into the existing system would create.