Of the two I consider SpaceX to be the more important and less replaceable company.
NASA had a very precise plan to create a commercial spaceflight industry in a similar way that it was instrumental in creating the commercial atmospheric flight industry in the 20th century. They want to get out of the business of launching things so it's less of a distraction from the doing things in space business.
Here are the goals from NASA's "2nd Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle" program:
* Investment in technology development and other activities needed to enable a full-scale development decision by 2006 and operations by early next decade of a space transportation system that will be safer, more reliable and less expensive than today's system.
* A coordinated approach that enables development of flexible, commercially-produced, reusable launch vehicles. This approach ensures that NASA unique hardware, developed by and for NASA unique missions-such as crew transport and planetary exploration-is compatible with commercial capabilities.
* Purchase of cargo re-supply services for the International Space Station - using commercial launch vehicles - to serve as backup for primary vehicles such as the U.S. Space Shuttle and international vehicles such as the Russian Progress rocket.
That's from April, 2002. SpaceX was founded May, 2002.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/...
I mean... they are still arguing that reusability is not economically viable. I get the sense that they didn't think it was going to work and now they're in shock and it's slowly sinking in just how far behind they are.
It's not very likely for any aerospace contractor to turn down work because it's structured in a way that avoids risks. The NASA contract isn't for only the final results, they pay the R&D costs. The first round might be a competition to design a reusable launch system. You get paid for designing, it's NASA's ambition, you're just implementing it (and trying to implement it better than the other guy).
ULA might not have ever taken the initiative itself, but if NASA wants to pay them to design a flying pig, they'll be happy to do it.
This is how government programs work contracting to the public sector, the motivation for cheaper reusable launches has existed for a very long time. Reusability was a primary design motivation that led to the space shuttle. Lessons learned pointed in a different direction than a space plane for the next iterations and difficulties developing things in house led to the commercial motivation.