There are other companies like ULA, Firefly, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, and etc but they are all behind what SpaceX is doing capabilities wise, who is doing it cheaper with good reliability. SpaceX did 98 successful launches in 2023. We are currently in a state of transition in the rocket industry caused by SpaceX and the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Western Countries lost the use of Soyuz and Russian rocket engines which Atlas 5 and Antares uses). Up until yesterday with ULA’s successful launch of Vulcan, they were the only rocket that currently exist and aren’t Russian and Chinese that can launch at medium to heavy lift capability. Currently everybody else and including the European companies aren’t ready either with their medium to heavy lift rockets. That is the issue right now is that SpaceX currently has an effective monopoly so they have too much sway right now but I’m so glad Vulcan was successful so that can finally end. Even Europe had to reluctantly use SpaceX since Ariane 6 and Vega aren’t ready yet.
Funny enough Defunctland talked about Topsy in his Coney Island episode. Pretty much the new owner, after doing an expensive renovation, couldn’t afford Topsy and probably had trouble selling Topsy because of controversy of the elephant killing a spectator in the past.
I remember looking this up awhile ago but there doesn’t seem to any animosity between the two. This misunderstanding seems to have started from a decades later biography on Tesla that assumed that an unnamed manger Tesla mentioned in his autobiography was Edison. This unnamed manger seems to have hated Tesla but it couldn’t be Edison because during this time period Edison was grieving the death of this wife so he was spending less time at his company and his position was wrong. Also, the dramatization of the current wars seems to have also contributed to this misunderstanding when ultimately it was just two companies, Edison and Westinghouse, competing over a standard. It didn’t really last that long and certain events were also misattributed to the current wars like the electrocutions of Topsy the Elephant. When that event happened about 10 years after the current wars ended. It involved with an animal rights organization that thought hanging Topsy was inhumane way to kill him so they thought electrocution would be the more humane way.
This isn’t the first time they lost contact so it may not be a huge issue in the end.