SpaceX is a Government Contractor. They claim to be putting up satellites fro the Pentagon.
NASA is sponsoring them, however according to their page they do not take part in the development of the rocket or the launch.
Usually, the space agency issues detailed requirements and specifications for its flight hardware and it takes ownership of any vehicles and associated infrastructure that a contractor produces. For COTS, NASA specified only high level goals and objectives instead of detailed requirements where possible, and left its industry partners responsible for decisions about design, development, certification and operation of the transportation system. Because NASA has a limited amount of money to invest, it encouraged the partners to obtain private financing for their projects and it left them free to market the new space transportation services to others.
This model for pursuing of commercial space services is another first for NASA and a reflection on the growing maturing of commercial space capabilities. "This is not a traditional NASA procurement or program. We could change the economics of space flight with this," said Lindenmoyer, whose office oversees COTS. NASA expects use of this model to increase over time as the exploration program unfolds, potentially extending to the provision of power, communications, and habitation facilities by commercial entities.
this is from:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/news/COTS_selection.htmlNow, how does NASA profit from giving private companies millions of dollars to sponsor the development and launching of private spacecraft when they can't get to space anyway?
NASA Cone head: "Hey SpaceX, how would you like to make 500 million?"
SpaceX dumbass: "Hell yeah, what do I do?"
NASA Cone head: "We will give you 500 million dollars to build a fake space craft, then fake a launch"
SpaceX dumbass: "That sounds great, after we pay for the parts for the faked space craft, and the labor for our engineers to design and build the thing, a fake testing plan, graphics and special effects employees for the video and photographs, then pay off all those people to not speak about it. (500+ employees at SpaceX). I'm sure we could just pocket a few mil, and hide it from our families and the IRS. Then the pentagon will pay us to send up satellites (that we don't really have because we faked it). Wow there is a lot of profit in that.
NASA Cone head: Exactly, we will all be millionaires.