I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how the space program works. NASA pays SpaceX for launch services. For other initiatives, NASA funds research initiatives through multiple companies for redundancy.
If we want to talk about pissing away money for rockets, how much money went to SLS development? Or maybe compare Boeing’s Starliner costs versus Crew Dragon.
Do the research and show me with numbers who the more cost efficient rocket development program is. I’ll wait.
The neat thing about government science programs, or any government program really, is that cost efficiency is not what drives results. If the best way to accomplish a goal is going to cost more money, then it costs more money. Thinking of the government as a business is as helpful as thinking about government budgets like a household budget. Governments maximize outcomes for their citizens, not shareholder value or profits.
And because you ended your post so unnecessarily rudely, so will I: stand up for your fellow man and encourage the de-privatization of space… and stop licking Elon’s boots. We’ll wait. ✌️
Nah Elon can fuck right off. He’s easily the world’s most colossal asshole.
How would you measure success? I’d measure it by number of objectives completed. Let’s take the commercial crew program as an example - how many successful crew launches has SpaceX completed vs. Boeing? How about vs. NASA? No American launch system compares to SpaceX in safety and capability yet. (Russia and China might be competitors, but there are political reasons why they can’t be chosen.)
I would absolutely LOVE to see more competition that obsoletes SpaceX. Maybe Blue Origin or RocketLab will step up? I don’t think SLS is really viable though.
How many commercial space flight programs landed on the moon? SpaceX was founded in 2002, over two decades ago. It had decades of public engineering data and knowledge to build on. In 1957, Sputnik made it to space, the first artificial satellite in the history of Earth. In 1969, humans landed on the moon.
You’re right, the goal of getting to the moon and scale of the effort was much bigger than putting satellites into space, even if they’ve put a lot of satellites into space. They had to invent crewed rockets. Nobody knew how to take an explosion and put a human person on top of it and surf that up to space, then people figured out how. Without that work, SpaceX (and friends) would not exist now.
Fair enough, other than the idea that they shouldn’t have been paid for the services rendered. R&D is a service just as much as launch is.
I do agree that anything developed using public funds should be publicly owned. Good luck convincing the US government of that though… that would upset the corporate overlords.
SpaceX has been paid extensively for services not rendered. The funds that are currently paying for their Starship development were ostensibly for a lunar lander. And they’re years behind schedule at this point. They haven’t even started on the lander itself.
I think you’re confusing NASA as a client of SpaceX with direct government subsidies and contacts. SpaceX has received billions and billions of dollars via contracts since 2015 (date of the article I linked). They’ve used that government money for their R&D to advance their tech and get to where they are today.
Yes, I mentioned that they also receive R&D contracts, along with the other major players like Boeing. The difference is that historically they have received less money yet delivered more.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how the space program works. NASA pays SpaceX for launch services. For other initiatives, NASA funds research initiatives through multiple companies for redundancy.
If we want to talk about pissing away money for rockets, how much money went to SLS development? Or maybe compare Boeing’s Starliner costs versus Crew Dragon.
Do the research and show me with numbers who the more cost efficient rocket development program is. I’ll wait.
The neat thing about government science programs, or any government program really, is that cost efficiency is not what drives results. If the best way to accomplish a goal is going to cost more money, then it costs more money. Thinking of the government as a business is as helpful as thinking about government budgets like a household budget. Governments maximize outcomes for their citizens, not shareholder value or profits.
And because you ended your post so unnecessarily rudely, so will I: stand up for your fellow man and encourage the de-privatization of space… and stop licking Elon’s boots. We’ll wait. ✌️
Nah Elon can fuck right off. He’s easily the world’s most colossal asshole.
How would you measure success? I’d measure it by number of objectives completed. Let’s take the commercial crew program as an example - how many successful crew launches has SpaceX completed vs. Boeing? How about vs. NASA? No American launch system compares to SpaceX in safety and capability yet. (Russia and China might be competitors, but there are political reasons why they can’t be chosen.)
I would absolutely LOVE to see more competition that obsoletes SpaceX. Maybe Blue Origin or RocketLab will step up? I don’t think SLS is really viable though.
How many commercial space flight programs landed on the moon? SpaceX was founded in 2002, over two decades ago. It had decades of public engineering data and knowledge to build on. In 1957, Sputnik made it to space, the first artificial satellite in the history of Earth. In 1969, humans landed on the moon.
I think the goals and scale of these efforts aren’t comparable. Best to compare apples to apples.
You’re right, the goal of getting to the moon and scale of the effort was much bigger than putting satellites into space, even if they’ve put a lot of satellites into space. They had to invent crewed rockets. Nobody knew how to take an explosion and put a human person on top of it and surf that up to space, then people figured out how. Without that work, SpaceX (and friends) would not exist now.
I’m not sure what part you think I’m not understanding since I didn’t suggest the opposite of anything you said.
Fair enough, other than the idea that they shouldn’t have been paid for the services rendered. R&D is a service just as much as launch is.
I do agree that anything developed using public funds should be publicly owned. Good luck convincing the US government of that though… that would upset the corporate overlords.
SpaceX has been paid extensively for services not rendered. The funds that are currently paying for their Starship development were ostensibly for a lunar lander. And they’re years behind schedule at this point. They haven’t even started on the lander itself.
That’s certainly true, though arguably Starship development is a prerequisite to the lunar lander, otherwise it could never leave the ground.
It’s really hard to understand why NASA picked Starship over a smaller, more traditional lander.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
I think you’re confusing NASA as a client of SpaceX with direct government subsidies and contacts. SpaceX has received billions and billions of dollars via contracts since 2015 (date of the article I linked). They’ve used that government money for their R&D to advance their tech and get to where they are today.
Yes, I mentioned that they also receive R&D contracts, along with the other major players like Boeing. The difference is that historically they have received less money yet delivered more.