As Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump traded increasingly acrimonious social media posts last week, space scientists such as Dr Simeon Barber looked on with particular concern.
"I was amazed and dismayed when I saw this unfolding," the senior research fellow at The Open University told 7.30.
"It's the kind of thing you usually see in kindergarten … a fall out in the playground and it ends up with kids in tears and sent to sit on the naughty step."
Mr Trump and Mr Musk's social media spat started with a disagreement over the US president's so-called 'big beautiful' budget bill before it got personal and even featured claims about the Epstein files being bandied around.
But also, and crucially, contracts for Musk's SpaceX were in the president's crosshairs.
"The easiest way to save money in our Budget … is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
Mr Musk responded on X that SpaceX "will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately".
He later posted Dragon was safe and wouldn't be decommissioned — but the threat illustrated the stakes of the dispute for America's space program.
"NASA has become incredibly reliant upon SpaceX, most notably for getting crew members to and from the International Space Station," Dr Barber said.
The Dragon capsule, developed with the help of government contr acts, is an important part of keeping the space station running.
SpaceX is the only US company capable right now of transporting crews to and from the space station, using its four-person Dragon capsules.
Boeing's Starliner capsule has flown astronauts only once; last year's test flight went so badly that the two NASA astronauts had to hitch a ride back to Earth via SpaceX in March, more than nine months after launching last June.
'Dependent upon SpaceX'
But it's not just getting cargo and crews to the space station. SpaceX also dominates the launch of US military and commercial satellites, accounting for 87 per cent of the American orbital launches in 2024.
"NASA has got itself, and also the military as well in the US, have gotten themselves in a position where they're dependent upon SpaceX."
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has become a workhorse, with its boosters landing vertically — allowing them to be reused and significantly reducing launch costs.
And America's space strategy is increasingly focused on SpaceX's much larger Starship rocket.
"A lot of NASA's missions, the future planning, is starting to include using Starship," Dr Barber said.
"Putting humans on the moon again using Starship as lander, and Trump has also been talking about going to Mars, and Starship will be central to those plans as well."
Dr Barber says SpaceX has even more leverage due to a proposed 25 per cent cut to NASA's budget.
"That would make it smaller as an institution and more reliant on external partners and those would be coming from the commercial sector. And SpaceX was a big part of that," Dr Barber said.
Since Elon Musk posted a reprieve for the Dragon spacecraft, there's been no more word from Mr Trump about SpaceX government contracts.
Dr Barber hopes both sides have stepped back from the brink.
"These comments that are made off the cuff about?'I'll cancel these contracts', 'OK, I'll cancel this program', they have major, major consequences," he said.
"International agencies collaborate to do space exploration. It's a big endeavour. Australia is looking at getting on board with the ISS. These things take decades to plan, and you need some kind of stable underpinnings and foundation to build upon.
"When that can all be knocked down with a few random tweets in half an hour, it really makes it difficult to plan for the future."
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