This week’s rapid, unscheduled disassembly of Elon Musk’s bromance with Donald Trump has left officials at America’s space and security agencies reeling. One NASA official, wary of the agency’s dependence on SpaceX as the space exploration industry’s leading recipient of government contracts,

NASA entrusts SpaceX with the lives of its astronauts, and the Pentagon relies heavily on the company to launch its most sensitive satellites.

In the heat of the moment, Elon Musk threatened to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and then he took it back. In doing so, however, the rocket billionaire dragged NASA into his messy breakup with Donald Trump, with the agency’s access to orbit now at stake.