As NASA increasingly relies on commercial space, there are some troubling signs
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Engineering organizations (I'm speaking towards mechanical engineering oriented ones) thrive when then are consistently trying to do bigger and better things. When they are constantly taking on new technical problems, new missions, and being asked to do more and funded to do more. In this situation they draw many of the best people because they are doing many of the most challenging things, they keep these people around as they keep throwing new problems at them, and ultimately create an organization of experienced mentors and enthusiastic mentees.
As soon as you start to cut doing new and cool things you loose the young enthusiastic people coming in. As soon as you start cutting capability you loose experienced mentors. As you loose both of those populations your ability to take on challenges declines, your understanding of why you do things declines, and your ability to advance your processes declines. Overall you move from an organization that is advancing to one that is struggling just to do things the way it did before.
The result is that instead of the US taxpayer OWNING the exclusive rights to the most advanced knowledge and technology in the world, we now LICENSE it from oligarchs who bought it with our money to hold over our heads forever.
Oligarchs who went all in and risked their entire net worth to make it work you mean.
Would you say this also applies to other systems? Like dictatorships, etc?
Bold to assume that the US government could’ve accomplished what SpaceX has accomplished in the same timeframe in this day of Federal contracting. Bear in mind that no other country, no other competitor comes close to SpaceX’s throughput at this time.
They should be commended, not seen as a threat to the US
¿Por qué no los dos? Recognizing that a private endeavour is a commendable achievement, but then nationalizing it so that it conforms to the nation’s interest (whether the direct interest of the populace, or more oblique national-security interests) has played out again and again throughout history.
When SpaceX learns something, that knowledge belongs to SpaceX, and specifically a trashboat named Elon Musk.
I'd rather spend 10x more and have the American people benefit. And your assertion of SpaceX's supremacy makes you look like a corporate simp.
As an aside, Musk was once upon a time aligned with the Left/Progressives/Democrats. He even fell out with Trump before during his first term, not that anyone probably remembers. Understand that Musk was on your side and got pushed away, like a lot of ex-Democrats turned Republicans.
He certainly has become more right wing over time.
Consider that most of the country shifted Right/Republican this election, which is another way of saying ex-Democrats turned Republicans.
Kind of ironically, the Democrats also became the party of neocons and war hawks by inviting the likes of Bush and Cheney.
The Democrats keep moving further Left, leaving normal people behind. You can only play the "world is out of touch" Simpsons meme so much before even that becomes too stupid to bother.
Actually it was more like about a 4 percent shift.
Think about it.
Everyone else, including American leftists forced to ally with the Democrats because they're the only game in town, is well aware that the Democrats been moving steadily to the right since Carter.
It didn't help that the only reason anyone voted for Biden to begin with was that he wasn't Trump. Biden's only mandate was to be less evil than the other side and he couldn't even manage the simple, basic task of being against genocide. And then Harris doubled down on it.
Which is really why they lost - not because they're too radically leftist for "normal people" (the implication that no leftists are normal is seen and noted) but because they aren't nearly leftist enough, and so Democrats decided to stay home in droves, or cast futile votes for third party.
You know this didn't happen right? There was no war and they didn't switch parties, they just said trump was so dangerously corrupt that people should vote against him.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/donald-trump-vote...
>Of the counties with nearly complete results, more than 89 percent shifted in favor of former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 presidential election,
They can be both, commended for the technical prowess and achievements while also being a threat if they gain leverage over the US government. That's the fine balance to walk on, SpaceX could only exist because of American taxpayers footing the bill for their launches when they still had to prove they could do it and no other entity more risk-averse would pay for their launches, the government got a product out of it (cheaper launches) but it doesn't mean there's any loyalty involved.
The moment corporations start to have leverage over strategic assets of a nation it starts to shape into a bad time for everyone.
In a parallel timeline where NASA gets 100billion a year, but there is no SpaceX, it's entirely possible that the pre-SpaceX status quo just continued on indefinitely. After all when SpaceX was first developing their tech, they were being actively mocked by Boeing/Lockheed (via Tory Bruno) with comments akin to 'yeah cute idea, we worked it out decades ago - not economically feasible. have fun learning.'
The SLS was going to be NASA's next big vessel, and costs there are trending to what could be around 4 billion a launch. With costs like that you're never going to do beat things in space.
OTOH, China is basically copying the SpaceX designs, even without the designs.
One great thing about Elon Musk is that he's so horrible to work for that lots of people join SpaceX straight out of school, get that expertise and then leave for better bosses or start their own company.
c.f. the "traightorous 8" that left Shockley to start Fairchild. Shockley almost singlehandedly created Silicon Valley by being a horrible boss.
Time to stop saying "It's bad that the commercial sector makes government run things look bad" and start asking "Why are government run organizations so bad at this?"
Neither can they pay engineers what they deserve. And probably a ton more reasons. A private company has a ton of flexibility. A government entity very little.
They can, or at least they could once upon a time.[1]
NASA's problems are all self-inflicted either by themselves or the Congress of the day.
Which means they can't. Speaking in theoretical terms is entirely pointless.
Technology is much better utilized in private hands and the entire history of silicon valley is a testament to this. It all started out from government research money.
> I assume space is more than just a commercial market segment to you?
Capitalism has been the greatest force for technological development in history. Technological development by government bodies is a dead end, just like the NASA apollo program. If government backed technological development worked, the soviet union would have won the cold war.
I and anyone from a former communist country is absolutely appalled by the way of thinking of so many in this thread and in general by the left in the US.
I guess I'll just ask that you have compassion for us silly folks that look at the accomplishments of the past by government organizations (such as NASA) that were amazing, inspiring, and maybe even on time and on budget and maybe mistakenly think we can do that again. I know in your mind we're wrong, I'm not asking you to change your view but we don't think these things because we want the US to become communist, we think these things because we want the US to be the US of the 1960s (in terms of engineering).
But I am giggling at the make america great again argument.
Spacex received $20bn from federal government. There's no competition. Spacex is hired exactly because of the shortcomings of what the government can and cannot. Maybe it's you who doesn't have the whole picture.
Is putting people on the moon for scientific exploration and human pride really a priority, budget-wise? That's not a rhetorical question, it's an invitation for discussion.
If the US Federal government spent 77 billion instead of 67 billion on housing assistance how much better off would people be?
This is all stuff that's hard to put a dollar figure on, which is to say they're political choices.
Considering Artemis has produced quite literally nothing of value?
Yes.
Arguably there's a value there even if you never see a Bald Eagle flying.
The same way I might get something from a program like Artemis that's produced and may never (for me at least) produce anything of value. Equally I get something from a Housing program even if I know for certainty I will never need to make use of it.
The value at question here is in large part (though obviously not entirely ) not quantifiable.
* The SLS is a rehash of Space Shuttle components with no new technology. Arguably, it's a regression since we will be using reusable SSMEs as disposables.
* Orion serves no valuable purpose in the wake of Crew Dragon and, indeed, even Starliner.
* The entire program has achieved nothing outside of one or two test launches depending on how you count.
Any other use of this money would produce more value, because any value is bigger than zero.
Pushing tech forward is one of the best things we can do since it often ends up bringing up the bottom end of society. There’s also significant cultural value in accomplishing incredible feats. America is too diverse right now and lacks a coherent culture, so we’re unable to mount any kind of defense against the elites. We need some kind of shared national identity and going to the moon regularly can definitely help with that.
My understanding is that NASA relied on external contractors for space launches forever (e.g., Douglas Aircraft, Morton thiokol).
Is it a question of who does the design (currently outsourced to Lockheedless and SpaceX?),. construction, maintenance, etc.?
Or is a question of who owns the IP?
Is that mentioned in the article? No mention of Russia.