The Pentagon and the US space agency (NASA) tried to convince companies during the past week, competing with Elon Musk's SpaceX, to produce alternative spacecraft and rockets, writes The Washington Post.
Christian Davenport's post talks about that, that amid a sharp deterioration in relations between US President Donald Trump and SpaceX owner Elon Musk, White House officials have reached out to at least three space-related commercial companies: RocketLab, Stoke Space і Blue Origin, to find out, how ready they are for space exploration tasks.
Earlier, Trump threatened to terminate SpaceX contracts, and Musk stated, which will stop the Dragon ship from flying, which will deprive NASA of the ability to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station. Musk later said, which will not terminate the Dragon program. But his behavior caused serious concern at NASA and the Pentagon, because the state depends on SpaceX to solve the most important tasks, including secret missions. At the same time, SpaceX, obviously, dominates the US space industry, significantly ahead of competitors.