Google and SpaceX are in talks to build data centers in orbit, pitching space as the future home for AI compute, even as costs today remain far higher than on the ground.
NASA did do a lot of it directly so no. There were subcontractors of course, but they were usually responsible for building specific things not the research that generally came from public universities and NASA.
SpaceX is not sharing their technology in the same way NASA did. In fact, they aren’t even patenting their tech as to keep it secret.
The government didn’t do it before either. They contracted private firms to do it, like Boeing and Rocketdyne…
NASA did do a lot of it directly so no. There were subcontractors of course, but they were usually responsible for building specific things not the research that generally came from public universities and NASA.
SpaceX is not sharing their technology in the same way NASA did. In fact, they aren’t even patenting their tech as to keep it secret.