Cosmonauts don't count for much?

[Ultralight Colin]

Very disappointed:-
Just watched the post ISS/Dragon show.

NO Soyuz mention!
No thanks to the Cosmonauts?
No thanks to Russia for an amazing NINE YEARS OF SAFE PASSAGES FOR AMERICAN ASTRONAUTS!
REALLY?
No offering Cosmonauts a free passage?

 

[Lee McM]

Not all Soyuz missions were routine, there have been several incidents including an aborted launch.
No free passages for Cosmonauts. They will pay SpaceX just as NASA will pay SpaceX on a per seat basis.
There are no free rides in this industry, only paying customers.

 

[Ken Fabian]

There are free rides; taxpayers pay for the tickets. Taxpayers paying companies for all the components of NASA built rockets or taxpayers paying for seats on the rockets made entirely by private companies... this may a "commercial" industry with respect to commercial satellite launches but the lines get blurry when the principle customers, upon whom "commercial" profitability depends, are government agencies.

 

[Douglas E Knapp]

There are free rides; taxpayers pay for the tickets. Taxpayers paying companies for all the components of NASA built rockets or taxpayers paying for seats on the rockets made entirely by private companies... this may a "commercial" industry with respect to commercial satellite launches but the lines get blurry when the principle customers, upon whom "commercial" profitability depends, are government agencies.

Yes, but this finger is pointing at the whole military industrial complex and clearly space as well but has it ever been different? SpaceX might be the first to build the whole rocket but I think most of the pieces have been made this way forever and then only put together at NASA.