I’ve been so sad to see the privatization of NASA. It feels very similar to me. SpaceX celebrating about launching a rocket into low earth orbit after spending billions in taxpayer money. How is this progress? We could do it back in the 60s with the equivalent computing power you can find in a $7 wristwatch today. Why didn’t we just keep building on our success, no we had to privatize, so that we could reach a beautiful end goal where space would not be for science and exploration funded by the people with its fruits improving humanity.
No we all had to pull together so spacex can build a massive taxpayer funded toll booth and every time America would like to visit the stars some billionaires can collect their cut. And people cheer
Now go check out how much each launch of the shuttle cost ($1.5 billion per flight) and compare it to the costs by SpaceX. The shuttle was launched 135 times, SpaceX has had more launches than that in the last 3 years. That tiny computer got us to the moon, but it wasn’t enough to make rockets or boosters be able to land or be reusable. And don’t bring up the farce of reusability of the shuttle. The number I recall from back when it was still flying was a 75% overhaul to get it flight ready.
Elon may be an enormous asshole, but SpaceX has taken what they got from NASA and moved it to the point where they’re one of a handful of groups who could get us back to the moon, and doing better than any corporation on that front (China may surpass them, and Artemis only counts as a long-term concern if they can do more than 5 or 6 launches ever, which is not the current plan).
I mean arguably we could’ve done all of that with nasa if nasa had received a similar level of funding to SpaceX, but that’s kind of getting into alt-history.
NASA spent more than that on the Shuttle program alone, and we got 135 launches and a dozen dead astronauts, so that is demonstrably false.
NASA is great, and did a lot of great things. We also got a lot of great technology (and some questionable shoes) because of it. But NASA suffers from the same thing Blue Origin does, bureaucracy and a top-down attitude with respect to developing technology. (They also suffered from a lot of government pork.) It’s a good system for developing new things from scratch with a clear goal, but it rarely works well for taking existing technology and wringing the most effectiveness you can out of it.
Besides all this, the shuttle program suffered from ties to the military, which put in expensive requirements that didn’t help the whole thing, either.
If NASA got out of the rocket launching business and contracted out that part of their mandate to others, they would have a lot more money to spend on other things, such as research, both pure and practical.
