"When you’re using taxpayer direct dollars to fund something, you don't want to fail," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell says. "I think that's a huge mistake."
SpaceX is seeking a special election in Texas to incorporate the private Starbase community that serves as a manufacturing complex, test facility and spaceport.
A decade ago, SpaceX launched six Falcon 9 rockets in a year—now, it could be on track for an orbital launch rate of 136 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy flights.
President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated billionaire Jared Isaacman, a commander of two SpaceX commercial space flights, to be the next NASA administrator.
The Prometheus effort began in 2018 to perform science and tech experiments in the extreme reentry environment through a low-cost, high-cadence flight testbed.