SPACEX STAGES A COMEBACK! The Crowd Flips the Space Race and Leaves NASA on the Pad

Fans, the scoreboard has flipped! When this matchup opened, my colleague Coach Tank reported that NASA was bench-pressing SpaceX in the battle over who better advances human spaceflight. Less than a day later the commercial upstart has come back to take the lead, and the government heavyweight is chasing on the rebound. This is the space race, folks, and right now the crowd is backing the private rocket over the federal one.

Here's the twist that makes this rivalry so strange: these two are teammates as much as opponents. NASA reports that its Crew-13 mission launched on a SpaceX Dragon capsule from Cape Canaveral on the first of October 2026, carrying two NASA astronauts, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut and a Roscosmos cosmonaut. According to NASA, that was the thirteenth operational rotation under the Commercial Crew Program, which has been flying regular crews to the International Space Station on Crew Dragon since a 2020 demonstration flight. Wikipedia's entry adds that Boeing's Starliner isn't expected to join the rotation as a human-rated vehicle before 2030. So for now, one team is doing the station runs.

The Moon is a different ballgame. A March 2026 report from NASA's Office of Inspector General found that lunar lander contract costs stayed under control, with the SpaceX contract up only about six percent. The same report also said SpaceX's lander would not be ready for a June 2027 lunar surface mission, that both SpaceX and Blue Origin have run into schedule delays and technical problems, and that NASA's risk-reduction approach for crewed landers still has gaps. That's a yellow card for the player and the referee alike.

And the crowd's call? On Morfi's opinion market, SpaceX leads with 60% consensus while NASA trails at 40%. That comes from 97 traders who have put $165,161 behind their opinions. Read it against the background and the logic holds up: the crowd seems to be scoring the routine station trips, the ones that just keep happening, above the agency's grand lunar plans. Even an auditor's warning about the lander didn't stop the momentum.

My take, fans, and it's purely opinion: this scoreline is a bit like crediting the striker and forgetting the coach who wrote the playbook. NASA drew up the program, picked the roster and paid for the seats. SpaceX is the one finishing the chances, though, and in this sport the highlight reel decides MVP votes. I'd call SpaceX the deserved leader on current form, but I wouldn't hand the agency its relegation papers yet. The whole season comes down to the Moon, and that game hasn't started.

What to watch: whether Crew-13 keeps the station rotation running smoothly, and whether the lander delays flagged by the inspector general turn into a real setback for SpaceX or a chance for NASA to claw back points. The market is barely a day old, so another lead change could come at any minute. Think the crowd got it wrong? Get in the game and join the market on Morfi.