I remain confused about why SpaceX is getting so much fanfare and praise. What have they accomplished that NASA didn't already accomplish during the Apollo missions? I know SpaceX is doing it all more cost effectively, because we have better technology, but have they actually accomplished anything tangible that NASA didn't a generation ago?
The shuttle was the first attempt at re-usability but was far too expensive to be viable. Only the space station is genuinely long term re-useable infrastructure. It's something you can actually use as a platform for further missions beyond it's initial purpose but it also has been excessively expensive. We can't go on like this. Nobody is talking about a replacement space station, the appetite just isn't there. Unless somebody does something, the space station might be the last long term repeatedly occupied human habitat in space.
SpaceX is doing something about that. If they really can reduce launch costs by a factor of 100:1, it will change the fundamental economics of everything we do in space. Suddenly going to the moon stops being a pointless gesture and becomes an economically viable long term proposition. Human habitats in space of the scale of the ISS or bigger become affordable. They're even talking about colonizing Mars and plan to do what's effectively a tech demo of that in 2018.
For the first time the rocket man dreams of the 1970s look like they could actually happen. For a lot of people, that's pretty exciting.
P.S. Downvotes for this question? Really? I'm as much a fan of SpaceX as anyone but it's a fair question, SpaceX haven't even launched one of their recovered rockets yet.