And SpaceX as a whole. It’s entirely government funded anyway. Should have kept that money in NASA where it belonged. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to put it all right back.
not entirely government funded, but enough that, if they withdraw funding, it would totally collapse.
the entire argument that “private companies do it cheaper” is mostly because they cut corners, skirt regulations, and screw over employees to do business on the cheap. then, we find out there may be massive security breaches like, oh, chatting with Putin and god knows who else…
Part of the problem is nasa seems to be very risk adverse now. Letting private companies take the risk is one way to get around that. I’m just glad we don’t have to depend on russia to get to space or the iss.
Don’t forget potentially underpay people. I don’t believe that’s happening for SpaceX specifically, but it does for many other competitors to government jobs. Government jobs aren’t necessarily super high pay, but they usually have solid pay with excellent benefits, pension, and work/life balance.
So when jobs move from the public to private sector, it often comes at the cost of employees. And in some extreme cases, employees are paid so little that they have to rely on government benefits to get by, which is extremely dumb. That’s subsidizing the private sector.
We would’ve never gotten propulsive landing so quickly purely through NASA. See how far behind the SLS was. And SpaceX’s funding comes mostly from private equity.
NASA’s budget isn’t the only reason SpaceX has been able to innovate faster. NASA is incredibly risk averse, as their failures reflect onto the US government and by extension their budget. Even when safety isn’t important such as with unmanned rockets, NASA doesn’t want news headlines blasting them for their rocket’s tendencies to blow up. SpaceX, by being a private company, is free to take risks and have rockets explode (if they’re unmanned that is) without much repercussions as they’re a private company, not the US government. They’ve had 7 unmanned rockets explode and several more reusable lander’s fail in their course to develop cheaper, reusable rockets, which had NASA done themselves would have been a national embarrassment, but because it was a private company they were free to take those risks to learn from their mistakes
The whole point is that there shouldn’t be an absence. The absence is there because of the private corporations. This is another insidious tendril of capitalism.
I agree wholeheartedly. Public money is being funneled into the MIC, of which SpaceX is now an integral part. If that same money or even a significant fraction had been instead alotted to NASA since the moon landings, we’d have bases on Titan already.
However, I want to see us touch the stars. And right now, it’s pretty much only SpaceX that has the drive and capital to get there.
That’s an odd question because government programs aren’t and shouldn’t be in areas to make a profit, aka act like a private company. They need to act where private sector can’t, won’t, or can’t do it well and when there is an important stake. Eg roads, schools, healthcare, police, firefighters, etc. This is why people are telling you it’s unlikely SpaceX would be around without government contracts and funding.
Privatizing a new space race is maybe the best idea the government has had in decades. NASA isn’t mothballed, quite the opposite. They’re doing more, faster, and with fewer costs.
Pretty sure they did ages ago, that was kinda the point of the space shuttel program. And thats just the most notable attempt, the DC-X is another example. Reusable rockets are just kinda inefficient for a lot of shit.
The DC-X/Delta Clipper was really cool, but the Space Shuttle was a design-by-committee safety and maintenance disaster. VentureStar didn’t go much better either, though that was mostly Lockheed.
NASA’s had the tech, the expertise, and the will for a while, but the political process was never going to give them permission to do anything more than slow-moving rehashes and incremental evolutions of old technology.
I mean please, forgive my imperfect analogy and call Edison an asshole, but for the love of all that is good don’t embarrass yourself by claiming electricity is useless.
Reread what I typed, reusablle rockets have their place but they can become rather inefficient or even outright wasteful depending on the circumstances. Remember it takes about a lot of energy to land something coming down from orbit, that means more fuel, more fuel means more weight. And sometimes it better to put that fuel and weight into putting more shit into orbit.
oh I know! It’s just that some humans throughout history had this insane amount of intelligence and creativity and they jumped our level of technology, and our understanding of the universe by decades, or arguably even more! It always blows my mind that there are people like that
Or they should’ve never left this to the private sector if there was going to be a strategic component to it. Now they’re at the mercy of an unstable foreign national, who is himself beholden to a bunch of foreign investors.
The most insane part is that they never even entered into a contract with Starlink to provide service. Starlink is the backbone of Ukraine’s communications infrastructure, and it’s shocking that the DoD and the Ukraine Armed Forces never thought “hey we should get a contract with Musk so we can ensure he keeps Starlink available throughout the war”. For such a critical service, they were content with dealing with Starlink directly and having Elon subsidize it personally, giving him a large degree of control over one of the most vital components of Ukrainian communications, rather than what they eventually did by going through the DoD to negotiate a contract with Elon using taxpayer dollars
lol, only he obviously is, so…
And I guarantee he was long before starlink - the riches man on earth doesn’t get that way and stay that way without owning at least a handful of politicians (and now his own media outlet of which he has absolute control and millions of existing followers ready to worship his every word).
I genuinely don’t understand how anyone can still look at anything this man does and think it’s benign, or worse, clueless…
That’s easy…the US needs to asset imminent domain on starlink. You don’t fucking blackmail the government.
And SpaceX as a whole. It’s entirely government funded anyway. Should have kept that money in NASA where it belonged. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to put it all right back.
(Also, archive link of top article here: https://archive.is/H6rzo )
not entirely government funded, but enough that, if they withdraw funding, it would totally collapse.
the entire argument that “private companies do it cheaper” is mostly because they cut corners, skirt regulations, and screw over employees to do business on the cheap. then, we find out there may be massive security breaches like, oh, chatting with Putin and god knows who else…
Part of the problem is nasa seems to be very risk adverse now. Letting private companies take the risk is one way to get around that. I’m just glad we don’t have to depend on russia to get to space or the iss.
Don’t forget potentially underpay people. I don’t believe that’s happening for SpaceX specifically, but it does for many other competitors to government jobs. Government jobs aren’t necessarily super high pay, but they usually have solid pay with excellent benefits, pension, and work/life balance.
So when jobs move from the public to private sector, it often comes at the cost of employees. And in some extreme cases, employees are paid so little that they have to rely on government benefits to get by, which is extremely dumb. That’s subsidizing the private sector.
From what I’ve heard it’s true. If you have a job offer from NASA and one from SpaceX, the NASA one is better.
We would’ve never gotten propulsive landing so quickly purely through NASA. See how far behind the SLS was. And SpaceX’s funding comes mostly from private equity.
Bullshit.
The reason is NASA’s budget kept getting slashed despite NASA making a profit since it’s inception.
We gave them less money so progress would be slow and salaries wouldn’t be competitive and then it could be privatized like so many sectors before it.
Because the wealthy can’t buy stock in NASA.
NASA’s budget isn’t the only reason SpaceX has been able to innovate faster. NASA is incredibly risk averse, as their failures reflect onto the US government and by extension their budget. Even when safety isn’t important such as with unmanned rockets, NASA doesn’t want news headlines blasting them for their rocket’s tendencies to blow up. SpaceX, by being a private company, is free to take risks and have rockets explode (if they’re unmanned that is) without much repercussions as they’re a private company, not the US government. They’ve had 7 unmanned rockets explode and several more reusable lander’s fail in their course to develop cheaper, reusable rockets, which had NASA done themselves would have been a national embarrassment, but because it was a private company they were free to take those risks to learn from their mistakes
In the absence of government funding, what’s the alternative to private companies?
The whole point is that there shouldn’t be an absence. The absence is there because of the private corporations. This is another insidious tendril of capitalism.
I agree wholeheartedly. Public money is being funneled into the MIC, of which SpaceX is now an integral part. If that same money or even a significant fraction had been instead alotted to NASA since the moon landings, we’d have bases on Titan already.
However, I want to see us touch the stars. And right now, it’s pretty much only SpaceX that has the drive and capital to get there.
That’s an odd question because government programs aren’t and shouldn’t be in areas to make a profit, aka act like a private company. They need to act where private sector can’t, won’t, or can’t do it well and when there is an important stake. Eg roads, schools, healthcare, police, firefighters, etc. This is why people are telling you it’s unlikely SpaceX would be around without government contracts and funding.
Privatizing a new space race is maybe the best idea the government has had in decades. NASA isn’t mothballed, quite the opposite. They’re doing more, faster, and with fewer costs.
NASA was never gonna figure out reusable rockets.
Pretty sure they did ages ago, that was kinda the point of the space shuttel program. And thats just the most notable attempt, the DC-X is another example. Reusable rockets are just kinda inefficient for a lot of shit.
The DC-X/Delta Clipper was really cool, but the Space Shuttle was a design-by-committee safety and maintenance disaster. VentureStar didn’t go much better either, though that was mostly Lockheed.
NASA’s had the tech, the expertise, and the will for a while, but the political process was never going to give them permission to do anything more than slow-moving rehashes and incremental evolutions of old technology.
Are you suggesting Falcon 9 is an inefficient rocket?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_orbital_launch_systems
https://i.imgur.com/3wwQHqK.png
I mean please, forgive my imperfect analogy and call Edison an asshole, but for the love of all that is good don’t embarrass yourself by claiming electricity is useless.
Reread what I typed, reusablle rockets have their place but they can become rather inefficient or even outright wasteful depending on the circumstances. Remember it takes about a lot of energy to land something coming down from orbit, that means more fuel, more fuel means more weight. And sometimes it better to put that fuel and weight into putting more shit into orbit.
Von Braun came up with the concept for a reusable rocket in the 50s. Not being able to figure it out was not the issue.
Von Braun was a true genius!
And a horrible Nazi. Let’s not forget that. The U.S. tried to make everyone forget that.
But yes, he was a genius.
oh I know! It’s just that some humans throughout history had this insane amount of intelligence and creativity and they jumped our level of technology, and our understanding of the universe by decades, or arguably even more! It always blows my mind that there are people like that
You strike me as an academic that struggles to appreciate the value of applied physics and engineering.
Because Von Braun came up with the concept of the reusable rocket in the 50s?
Because Von Braun’s contribution was small in comparison to what SpaceX R&D contributed.
But that seems lost on you, it was certainly not obvious to you.
Or they should’ve never left this to the private sector if there was going to be a strategic component to it. Now they’re at the mercy of an unstable foreign national, who is himself beholden to a bunch of foreign investors.
Turns out unregulated capitalism might be slightly at odds with democracy.
The most insane part is that they never even entered into a contract with Starlink to provide service. Starlink is the backbone of Ukraine’s communications infrastructure, and it’s shocking that the DoD and the Ukraine Armed Forces never thought “hey we should get a contract with Musk so we can ensure he keeps Starlink available throughout the war”. For such a critical service, they were content with dealing with Starlink directly and having Elon subsidize it personally, giving him a large degree of control over one of the most vital components of Ukrainian communications, rather than what they eventually did by going through the DoD to negotiate a contract with Elon using taxpayer dollars
Yep this. They privatize everything then complain when it doesn’t go their way.
Tell that to scientology.
Lol no kidding.
lol, only he obviously is, so…
And I guarantee he was long before starlink - the riches man on earth doesn’t get that way and stay that way without owning at least a handful of politicians (and now his own media outlet of which he has absolute control and millions of existing followers ready to worship his every word).
I genuinely don’t understand how anyone can still look at anything this man does and think it’s benign, or worse, clueless…
With the rich, never attribute to stupidity what you can attribute to malice.