NASA is far from a perfect government agency. As former space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale recently noted, NASA is hobbled by three major problems—rivalries between field centers, "mind-numbing" bureaucracy, and a "paralyzing" cultural requirement for perfection in all things.

But for all of its problems, NASA remains an organization capable of doing great things, filled with talented and motivated people. And among the goals NASA has committed to is encouraging US companies to invest in spaceflight and develop sustainable business plans. NASA seeks to open outer space for business, particularly low Earth orbit.

To that end, NASA has been a great partner to SpaceX and its goal of reducing the cost of access to space. NASA essentially saved the launch company with a $1.6 billion contract in 2008 to provide cargo delivery to the International Space Station. The space agency is also in the midst of providing the company more than $3 billion to develop and begin flying crewed missions to the station. These funds have allowed SpaceX to design and develop its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and two variants of the Dragon spacecraft, including the Dragon 2 capsule the company proposed to send two humans around the Moon in next year.

After SpaceX's dramatic announcement Monday about its lunar tourism plans, NASA issued what at the outset appears to be a supportive statement: "NASA commends its industry partners for reaching higher." However, reading a bit deeper into the statement, there is something of a rebuke, suggesting the agency's patience with the Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX is wearing a bit thin. It is not clear where this important relationship is now headed.

Forbearance

Considering all of the support it has provided SpaceX, it is illustrative to look at how SpaceX has treated the space agency. On the plus side, the company has provided cargo transport services to the space station that would have cost NASA billions of dollars more to develop using its traditional, cost-plus contracting processes. With its splashy launches and landings, SpaceX has also increased public interest in—and support for—NASA's activities on the space station.

But on the negative side, consider the following:

During a resupply flight to the station in June 2015, a Falcon 9 rocket disintegrated about two minutes into flight. NASA lost 2.5 tons of payload, including an expensive docking adapter. NASA's response was to support the company in its accident investigation and get the company flying again.

As part of its commercial crew mission profile, SpaceX has proposed to NASA that it will load chilled propellants on the rocket at the last minute, with crew on board. However, in September, 2016, NASA watched as a Falcon 9 rocket exploded during a preflight test on the launch pad, destroying its satellite payload. It's possible the crew might have survived due to a launch abort system on Dragon. Again, NASA assisted with the investigation, but it remains gravely concerned about such "load and go" operations with crew strapped in.

In the fall of 2016, SpaceX announced an ambitious plan to colonize Mars in the 2020s. While nominally the company said it only needed $10 billion to land the first colonists on Mars, in reality it likely would need much more than that to build its large Interplanetary Transport System. The company's first (and probably only) choice for those funds? NASA. Only the space agency already has its own plan to go to Mars in the 2030s.

NASA also recently announced that it is studying the possibility of sending two astronauts on a week-long looping flight around the Moon and back in 2019 using its Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. Then, on Monday, SpaceX said it may do the same thing in 2018. If the government would like to use its rocket and spacecraft instead of the NASA vehicles, that would be just fine, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said.

Finally, even as SpaceX was announcing competing plans to explore deep space, its timeline for delivering commercial crew astronauts to the International Space Station was slipping to the right. Late 2017 has become late 2018, and NASA is considering buying seats from the Russians for 2019 due to the likelihood of further slippages.

NASA: SpaceX, please

The second part of NASA's statement on SpaceX's lunar-tourism news offers some insight into how the space agency really feels about the latest announcement. The agency says, "We will work closely with SpaceX to ensure it safely meets the contractual obligations to return the launch of astronauts to US soil and continue to successfully deliver supplies to the International Space Station."

Roughly translated, this means: Dear SpaceX, we have stood by you. We have given you $3 billion for crew services, the majority of your revenues in recent years, and we are desperately tired of relying on Russia to get our astronauts to the space station. Could you please focus on our contract? Like, now?

A more blunt assessment was offered by Mary Lynne Dittmar, who is familiar with the thinking of NASA's human spaceflight program managers. “I find it extraordinary that these sorts of announcements are being made when SpaceX has yet to get crew from the ground to low-Earth orbit," she told The New York Times.

This is essentially the position of many—although certainly not all—at NASA, along with its primary contractors. Dittmar serves as executive director of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, the organization formed by the principal contractors behind NASA's SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. These are the old-guard aerospace firms, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, whose government contracts are threatened by SpaceX. Orion, in particular, appears to be particularly vulnerable if SpaceX can show that Dragon is capable of performing the same kind of deep space missions and high velocity returns from the Moon.

With his latest proposal, Elon Musk is playing a dangerous, but potentially winning, game with his lower-cost alternatives to NASA's existing programs. He recognizes that NASA has nurtured his company, and on Monday night, he remained publicly appreciative of the space agency. However by talking about Mars and now the Moon, he not only indicates that his company isn't entirely focused on its most important contract—commercial crew—but also is making a play for NASA's future deep space exploration plans.

Musk is betting that Vice President Mike Pence will strongly suggest that NASA leverage SpaceX's more affordable capabilities to get American astronauts into deep space, sooner. If the Trump administration fails to come through, however, Musk risks alienating his closest—and by far his most important—ally.