As for the 90%: I think it is obvious that it's nothing more than my estimation since there is no poll or whatsoever
If you would visist a vegetarian forum for example and start talking about eating meat, you probably won't find a lot of proponents
don't you think that NASA has been doing a pretty good job most of the time for the last 30 years,
Yes, I think so as I have mentioned a few times. STS did offer way more scientific capabilities than Apollo did. And away from that money/budegt talk, from the engineering point of view STS is an awesome achievement without any doubt (just as Apollo was). That's why we are here and why SSM does exist
But what makes me rather nervous and disappointed is that NASA is suffering from structual issues causing a huge amount of unnecessary bureaucracy and costs and also turn it into a big job machine and election campaign. Constellation really was a big mistake although I was quite amazed previously. I don't think, and the Augustine Commission and many others think, that this was the right path for a future sustainable program. All that was amazing was their advertising and computer animations. But the required costs and timeline was anything but acceptable.
Also, while some people literally demonize commerzialisation of space, I think what for example Aldrin and many others think, that it will benefit the national goals by lowering costs because of way less bureaucracy etc. As we can see, no matter if SpaceX gets money from NASA, that something like SpaceX in fact can perform space flight by relatively low costs, so far. I don't see a reason why commerzial companies should not do the transportation part just for the sake to see NASA doing it. Yes, transportation and exploration is not the same. But it's not rigorously separable. Remember that STS basically was meant to be a profitable space transportation system from the beginning.
while SpaceX has probably made (and will be making) quite a few mistakes too?
Yes. I've never said SpaceX will be flawless all the time. What I'm saying is that SpaceX is the first company with access to space and which can offer it relatively cheap without being a big expensive bureaucracy.
That obvious attitude makes you sound biased and inflexible, and as such, almost incapable of conducting a constructive, evolving, involving and interesting dialogue.
Maybe that's the main reason why the rest of the "90%" didn't join in, even if at times, like me, they partly agree with you.
I also think that this forum is quite calm anyway, but which is not meant as a criticism. What SpaceX does do at the moment, combined with my jabbering, might not even interest a lot of people as long as they don't send humans into space...
