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What happens to the rockets after they're flown for a single mission? Do they belong to SpaceX for later re-use in commercial cargo missions, or does NASA own t
by matthewdgreen 6y ago
What happens to the rockets after they're flown for a single mission? Do they belong to SpaceX for later re-use in commercial cargo missions, or does NASA own them?
- saberdancer 6y agoNASA pays for the mission, transport XY amount of tonnage to the ISS. The rocket remains owned by SpaceX. In majority of situations, owning a rocket means little as it cannot be reused. Also very few customers have the means to "run" a rocket, NASA fits the bill and it's conceivable NASA could buy a F9 and use it after quite a bit of training, but this makes little sense for them and little sense for SpaceX.
- hinkley 6y agoI think I'm picking up from context (aka reading between the lines) that the optics of NASA using a refurbished rocket - and it failing - is not good, so let SpaceX do what they want. Recall that a lot of aerospace budget from the US is defense spending dressed up as something else. Similar to the way the original space race was a proxy war for a proxy war: If you can fly people into space you can fly an ICBM to Moscow/Washington DC.