10 ms·

Not sure how people are misreading the comment, but in an alternate world NASA would still have the capability to sell this same service to DoD. Since that's no

by lalos 6y ago

Not sure how people are misreading the comment, but in an alternate world NASA would still have the capability to sell this same service to DoD. Since that's not the case, this void has been filled by private companies. Given that info, re-read my comment.

jccooper 6y ago
There was such a world. Travel back to 1990, and NASA is selling launch services to DoD via Shuttle. In fact, every other domestic launcher had been shut down to reduce competition on NASA. It worked out so well (read: sarcasm) that DoD created a program to pay two defense contractors to create essentially-new expendable rockets. Which were hideously expensive, but still less expensive than Shuttle and previous expendable rockets, so this was considered a win. Those two rocket programs were later more-or-less forcibly extracted from their parent companies to become... ULA. There was a point in the early Space Age where government employees designed rockets: Army Ballistic Missile Agency and Naval Research Lab and such. Basically never were they built in house; even the earliest rockets were actually built by airplane manufacturers. It didn't take long for design to move to private firms, with government specification, insight, and funding. Like pretty much all defense technology, rocket development and manufacture in the US is today all done by private firms. The government often owns the designs, but all the skill and know-how is in the private sector and they can easily make close derivatives on their own or for other customers, if they are allowed and want to do so. (NASA's SLS is the major departure from this, as the first rocket NASA has ever designed in house--though still built by Boeing and ATK and friends. It's a bunch of Shuttle leftovers that somehow has still cost tens of billions of dollars and counting and is some 5 years behind schedule.) The point of all this is: the USG isn't handing over the keys to the kingdom of spaceflight to private companies today. They did that in the 1950s and/or never had them in the first place. There's nothing different today except a project and contract structure that better aligns cost incentives, creates competition, and encourages these companies to create a market outside the government.

by lalos 6y ago

jccooper 6y ago

There was such a world. Travel back to 1990, and NASA is selling launch services to DoD via Shuttle. In fact, every other domestic launcher had been shut down to reduce competition on NASA. It worked out so well (read: sarcasm) that DoD created a program to pay two defense contractors to create essentially-new expendable rockets. Which were hideously expensive, but still less expensive than Shuttle and previous expendable rockets, so this was considered a win. Those two rocket programs were later more-or-less forcibly extracted from their parent companies to become... ULA. There was a point in the early Space Age where government employees designed rockets: Army Ballistic Missile Agency and Naval Research Lab and such. Basically never were they built in house; even the earliest rockets were actually built by airplane manufacturers. It didn't take long for design to move to private firms, with government specification, insight, and funding. Like pretty much all defense technology, rocket development and manufacture in the US is today all done by private firms. The government often owns the designs, but all the skill and know-how is in the private sector and they can easily make close derivatives on their own or for other customers, if they are allowed and want to do so. (NASA's SLS is the major departure from this, as the first rocket NASA has ever designed in house--though still built by Boeing and ATK and friends. It's a bunch of Shuttle leftovers that somehow has still cost tens of billions of dollars and counting and is some 5 years behind schedule.) The point of all this is: the USG isn't handing over the keys to the kingdom of spaceflight to private companies today. They did that in the 1950s and/or never had them in the first place. There's nothing different today except a project and contract structure that better aligns cost incentives, creates competition, and encourages these companies to create a market outside the government.