SpaceX no longer needs NASA, and that's a problem for America's space agency

Ars Technica's Eric Berger reports that SpaceX is pulling back from new government spaceflight work as it bets on AI: it has told NASA it will stop flying Crew Dragon by or before 2030, stopped selling Falcon 9 launches for missions after 2028 and declined to bid on new Space Force launch contracts. Musk said on the Q3 call that SpaceX's launch team is now deploying terrestrial compute, targeting 10 GW in 2027. NASA sources question the priority of SpaceX's $2.89B lunar lander contract: a landing demo may need about 20 Starship launches, against Musk's 6 to 8, with the first in-orbit refuelling test targeted for early 2027. 'NASA desperately needs SpaceX, and SpaceX knows it, and Elon knows it,' says ASU professor Chris Davenport.