It is the case that there are no especially innovative techniques in the Falcon launchers. And it is also the case he is a very good business man.
Not very good, I would rate others in that category. :lol:
But in case of Elon Musk, you can at least be sure: When he invests into a business, it is progressive. Not always successful though.
But the implications of that are that any of the aerospace companies in the world could also cut the development costs of launchers and spacecraft by a factor of 5 to 10 by privately financing their development.
In short, he provided the formula for how space access can become routine.
Wrong, and that can be explained pretty simple: The costs of developing a new vehicle depends on many factors, luck is one of them. Who pays your bills, is a lesser factor. The confidence level, that you aim for, is the more expensive factor: The more you need to test at every level of the development, the more expensive things get, if you also need more complex testing gear, things get expensive.
But if the management, that controls your progress in relation to the funding, is blind and deaf, your costs will explode because corrective measures will be taken too late or not at all. That is not a matter of private vs public. There are private projects especially in bigger companies, that have a life of their own.
Next, what you claim to be a major achievement of SpaceX, is the lack of achievements. They managed to copy others. The rocket is their own design, but all the basic research and technology needed was already there. If you can limit yourself on buying what is already there and only low risk development, you can be very cheap. Chinese companies are great in that detail - they can turn cheapest chinese parts into something that looks like a Stihl chainsaw, but breaks when you use it for cutting wood.
According to the GAO, the Atlas V and Delta IV development costs for both rocket families together had been just 1.6 billion USD. The EELV program costs increased by 85% in the final years, because the commercial satellite launch market collapsed, that was part of the deal for getting the unit costs lower - the unit costs increased by 143% because of the market changes. The actual development costs increased only by 17% in that time, which is pretty harmless.
The $300 million development costs for the Falcon 9 is in that relation not really impressive - and sure not 5 (<$150 millon)- 10 times (<$75 million) less than what was possible by classic cost plus contracts in the EELV context, which emphasize quality over costs.
SpaceX has yet to show that they can also handle medium or high technological risk projects with their internal processes. NASA has been designed in their processes for high technological risk, and should not be compared to SpaceX until SpaceX does the same.
