ISS is the reason SpaceX exists, for example. Without it, the government funded “commercial space” efforts and development help wouldn’t have happened and the other things spacex is doing and going to do wouldn’t have happened.
I have no idea whether the Crew Dragon contract rescued SpaceX financially or not, I'll take your word for it. However, I'm unsure why you're framing this as a counterpoint to my argument?
> I also don't necessarily have any problems with that, unless it's siphoning away funds that could have been used to build up an actual orbital infrastructure
ISS is/was being used as a first step in building “actual” orbital infrastructure. SpaceX was awarded $400M for the developmental of falcon 9 + dragon, phase two was paying for the actual subsequent launches which is ongoing.
“Rescued spacex” would be an odd way of putting it, developing then launching crew and cargo to iss is a huge part of their revenue which enables them to pursue other things like starlink and starship, etc. $2B in 2022 from NASA isn’t a rescue, it’s their business.
ISS isn’t an impressive end, it’s a necessary stepping stone which is enabling next steps like commercial space developing technology and companies, testing things in a relatively safe space relatively cheaply.
