It's kind of like the Defense Industry. Almost entirely dominated by government contracts. So of course private industry that contracts with them are dependent on those government contracts. But it doesn't take too much imagination to think about a time when space, unlike defense, will become less dominated by governments and more by the private sector.

I'm reasonably certain that IM competed against other companies for the NASA contract it got. And yes there were failures on their part, although I can't say someone forgetting to hit a switch had anything to do with cutting corners to save money. (I hope in fact there is an investigation to determine if there was any deliberate malfeasance here.)

But let's get real here. The free market has failed many times, but it has also succeeded uncountable times and in immeasurable ways. Pointing to this one failure as an example of an entire economic system sounds like, well, a pious self-serving ideological justification of your own dogma relating to the free market.