filtherton

Well, their rocket design is based on the v-2, which was developed by the german military during world war 2. Their design also uses a motor designed by an american military defense contractor. It's not like they haven't benefited from technology produced at the behest and funding of government forces. It would be interesting to see how far they would have gotten if some of their most crucial components weren't mostly already designed by someone else. I think that it's still safe to say that private industry would never have given us a space program, at least not without considerable cribbing from government funded projects and/or technology.

I'm not saying that private industry isn't able to create new technology or do research. What i'm saying is that private industry isn't set up to do the types of things that many forms of research and experimentation require. The market is pretty good at finding ways to be successful with technology created elsewhere (like the winners of the x prize have).