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For much of the twentieth century, space exploration was conducted almost exclusively by national governments, whose space agencies bore the full cost of designing, launching, and operating spacecraft as instruments of scientific research and geopolitical prestige. This arrangement began to shift meaningfully once launch costs, historically the single largest barrier to entry, started declining as a result of reusable rocket technology developed initially for government contracts but subsequently adapted for commercial use. Private companies, no longer required to build an entirely new vehicle for every mission, could instead compete to offer launch services at substantially lower prices, prompting government agencies to shift from owning and operating vehicles themselves toward purchasing transportation as a service, much as an airline purchases fuel rather than refining it independently. This transition has had several notable consequences. Satellite deployment costs have fallen sharply, enabling a proliferation of small communications and earth-observation satellites operated by companies and universities that could never previously have afforded access to orbit. Scientific missions to the Moon and beyond increasingly rely on hybrid arrangements in which government agencies define mission objectives and provide scientific instruments while private firms handle launch and, in some cases, spacecraft design and operation. Critics of this model caution that profit-driven firms may deprioritize scientific missions with limited commercial return, such as long-duration deep-space probes, in favor of more lucrative satellite constellations, and that reduced government control over launch infrastructure could create strategic vulnerabilities if private providers experience financial difficulty or shift priorities. Supporters respond that competition has already accelerated innovation and reduced costs beyond what any single government program achieved in decades, and that appropriately structured contracts can preserve public oversight of mission-critical priorities while still capturing the efficiency gains of private competition.