4 ms·

"And the irony is, that he got money for first SpaceX launches from NASA, and got a lot of engineering made for him for free at NASA as well." That isn't reall

"And the irony is, that he got money for first SpaceX launches from NASA, and got a lot of engineering made for him for free at NASA as well." That isn't really "ironic" though. All of the technology that NASA develops is "free" for any US company that wants to use it. Pre-pandemic NASA would host an annual NASA Technology exposition at Ames Research that was kind of like a science fair for nerds. There were posters, and often the original investigators, who would discuss what they did, what they discovered, how it could be used, etc. A number of bio-diesel companies got their start from NASA bio-diesel research. I much prefer that model to the one where the NSF or DARPA funds a university research program that then patents the research and holds it hostage to licensing fees. The other aspect of your comment is also somewhat out of touch with the relationship NASA has with space craft. NASA has never been the sole supplier of a space craft. They always let contracts to vendors who built components of spacecraft and then they integrated those components into a complete system. Many of the "big" components for space craft are not off the shelf, like engines, so unless you want the government in the rocket engine building business, you buy those from someone else. From the very first, NASA rockets such as Vanguard and Mercury Redstone were purchased from others. That said, NASA recognized as early as the Mercury project days that they were not ever going to be a "supplier" of rockets to third parties. They use rockets to do science and they need someone to buy them from. One need only look at the Space Launch System (SLS) to see the travails of NASA trying to project manage building rockets these days. The budgeting process is stuffed to overflowing with politics where congressional representatives make budget dollars contingent on them going to a company in their district or state, and science as a priority comes and goes depending on the administration. NASA didn't "give" SpaceX money, they bought rockets from SpaceX to meet their needs. Just like a startup that "lands" a big enterprise customer that buys their product and as a result provides the resources for the startup to both grow and build and deliver the product that was purchased. Looking at the price they paid, they got a good deal. The first "big" contract, the resupply missions, cost NASA way less than it would have if they had paid ULA to launch those missions. At the same time SpaceX made enough profit from that contract to continue improving the fundamentals. Once it was clear they could reliably get things into orbit, other people who wanted to buy "launch services" started inquiring. SpaceX has out competed every other launch provider in the world because they can launch a payload and make money on it at a price that doesn't cover the other vendors launch at all. And they can do that because they are vertically integrated (pun intended) providing the booster, the engines, and the delivery system. If you want to look at being "subsidized" by the government then you need look no further than the "cost plus" contracts that the government used to write for launch services. Those explicitly allowed the folks as ULA to scrape a few billion dollars off the top every year to "insure a domestic launch capability." Something you need if one third of your national defense rests on being able to use a rocket to put a bunch of nuclear warheads into someone's country[1]. So I think it is important to give credit where credit is due. Elon Musk re-imagined how the space launch industry might be structured and Gwen Shotwell effectively built a company that could execute on that re-imagining. This even when the existing companies in the space called Elon's ideas "fanciful", "ludicrous", or in one case "drug induced." I continue to watch Blue Origin as well, although I feel as if the team of Jeff Bezos and Bob Smith (the CEO) is not as strong here. It is particularly illuminating to compare choices they have made as a company (secrecy vs openness, prioritizing sub-orbital over orbital, Etc.) and how they have played out. [1] Hence the research programs of Iran, North Korea, India, and Pakistan to name a few.

baybal2 6y ago
I see it this way: NASA tries to make a new launcher by itself, though with big inputs from your usual defence industry contractors. Gets shut down by politicians. SpaceX waltzes into the room, hires all fired engineers working on that from NASA, and LM for a dime, has NASA do half of their rocket for them, for NASA's money (and thus US government's.) Essentially Musk resold the exiting RnD, and work of US government's engineers to US government.
- nickik 6y ago
  That is just pure nonsense. When NASA tried to create the Ares-1 they spend many, many billions and were basically nowwhere and the architecture of their vehicle was absolutly terrible and not remotely competitive with commercial rockets. The got 'shut down by politicians' is because it was a black money pit for a suppar rocket. The reason SpaceX 'waltzed in' was that they actually executed on price, so you don't really have an argument for shutting them down. SpaceX doesn't just sell NASA RnD back to them. First of all, non of that RnD was anywhere near production level, and specially not at the prices SpaceX wanted offered. A lot of the NASA archtecture were simply fundamentally unusable or unpractical, specially if you wanted to use it in a commercial market. In fact, one could argue that going againt everything NASA was doing at the time is what made SpaceX successful. SpaceX made its own choices on every part of the rocket and the capsule, systematically innovated on each part of the rocket and architecture ending up far away from what NASA would have ever even considered doing. That NASA did in no why what so ever build half their rockets for them, or design them. I don't know where you came up with this. What SpaceX is did is fundamentally innovate and rethink the problems to achieve a better solution both from a design and a manufacturing perspective. This downplaying of SpaceX achivement by claiming its all just NASA tech that they are selling to the government is just petty and sad.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > SpaceX doesn't just sell NASA RnD back to them. First of all, non of that RnD was anywhere near production level, and specially not at the prices SpaceX wanted offered. A lot of the NASA archtecture were simply fundamentally unusable or unpractical, specially if you wanted to use it in a commercial market. Saying that they "resold their own RnD to them" is not copy-paste Ares-1. ULA, Nasa, defence contractors at large had decades of experience with kerolox rocketry starting with first American rockets, which they threw away, and Musk picked up at the cheap with their engineers. And it was a very safe, and sound decision. The same for returnable capsules, and orbital vehicle expertise.

baybal2 6y ago

I see it this way: NASA tries to make a new launcher by itself, though with big inputs from your usual defence industry contractors. Gets shut down by politicians. SpaceX waltzes into the room, hires all fired engineers working on that from NASA, and LM for a dime, has NASA do half of their rocket for them, for NASA's money (and thus US government's.) Essentially Musk resold the exiting RnD, and work of US government's engineers to US government.

nickik 6y ago
That is just pure nonsense. When NASA tried to create the Ares-1 they spend many, many billions and were basically nowwhere and the architecture of their vehicle was absolutly terrible and not remotely competitive with commercial rockets. The got 'shut down by politicians' is because it was a black money pit for a suppar rocket. The reason SpaceX 'waltzed in' was that they actually executed on price, so you don't really have an argument for shutting them down. SpaceX doesn't just sell NASA RnD back to them. First of all, non of that RnD was anywhere near production level, and specially not at the prices SpaceX wanted offered. A lot of the NASA archtecture were simply fundamentally unusable or unpractical, specially if you wanted to use it in a commercial market. In fact, one could argue that going againt everything NASA was doing at the time is what made SpaceX successful. SpaceX made its own choices on every part of the rocket and the capsule, systematically innovated on each part of the rocket and architecture ending up far away from what NASA would have ever even considered doing. That NASA did in no why what so ever build half their rockets for them, or design them. I don't know where you came up with this. What SpaceX is did is fundamentally innovate and rethink the problems to achieve a better solution both from a design and a manufacturing perspective. This downplaying of SpaceX achivement by claiming its all just NASA tech that they are selling to the government is just petty and sad.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > SpaceX doesn't just sell NASA RnD back to them. First of all, non of that RnD was anywhere near production level, and specially not at the prices SpaceX wanted offered. A lot of the NASA archtecture were simply fundamentally unusable or unpractical, specially if you wanted to use it in a commercial market. Saying that they "resold their own RnD to them" is not copy-paste Ares-1. ULA, Nasa, defence contractors at large had decades of experience with kerolox rocketry starting with first American rockets, which they threw away, and Musk picked up at the cheap with their engineers. And it was a very safe, and sound decision. The same for returnable capsules, and orbital vehicle expertise.