Comment by panick21_

The 'Mars concept' by SpaceX was not grounded in the same 'strategic goals' as anything NASA or DoD were planning at the time.

NASA at the time primary was doing a moon program called Constellation. And DoD was not really thinking much about deep space at all.

If you are talking about the other Mars program then I don't why that would be relevant in this context.

> Many forget the DC-X.

Not sure what you are implying here. NASA and DoD had periodic programs to do various things and test various things, including reuse. See X-33 and Rotary Rocket. But all those concepts involved Single Stage to Orbit and were arguably pretty dumb and incredibly unlikely to ever work.

If the question were about, did SpaceX invent re-usability or vertical landing then your point might be relevant, but it isn't.

Even if it was true that DC-X is the pure expression of some kind of missile defense obsessed deep state, then this would still be irrelevant for SpaceX.