As well as cargo missions and hordes of satellites, SpaceX are throwing themselves into the realm of manned space flight. As the Space Shuttle programme ended in 2011 and its successor, the Space Launch System, has been repeatedly been pushed back and delayed with a current estimated finish date of some-time-in-the-next-decade (2021 was the last solid number), the United States don't actually have any means by which they can put astronauts into space at the moment. With the US space programme now barely limping into orbit using borrowed Russian spacecraft, the entire enterprise hangs in the balance of maintaining good political relationships with the countries that own all the rockets. This is not a particularly secure strategy, demonstrated in a tweet by the Russian Deputy Prime Minister after the US brought sanctions against them, suggesting that the Americans deliver their astronauts to the ISS using a trampoline in future. To try and avoid this eventuality, NASA have had to go private, splitting a budget of $6.8 billion between Boeing and SpaceX for crewed launches. Seeing as the big, government run hitters are currently somewhat out of the game, this leaves the market is wide open for some next-generation manned spacecraft.