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> NASA is not incompetent or corrupt and neither are its contractors. But there are a damn lot of special interests influencing the process. > The reason why

> NASA is not incompetent or corrupt and neither are its contractors. But there are a damn lot of special interests influencing the process. > The reason why things are so expensive and take so long is because of how our society demands that government act. The response to failure of any kind is pull the plug, and skin those responsible alive in the press, and treat it not as a setback or a problem to be solved, but yet another play in a partisan-ideological football game. Can you give an example for this that would explain the immense costs compared to e.g. SpaceX bootstrapping itself for a fraction? They may not be corruption, but there sure as hell are a lot of special interests. NASA's budget is set by Congress, after all.

wallfacer120 4y ago
Democracy and politics is special interests. That's literally all it ever is, all it ever could be.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
SpaceX has a profit motive and backing business. NASA is pure cost, so of course it costs more. And spacex doesn’t have a fully scoped moon base platform. It doesn’t even have a full heavy lift yet. Why? Because the costs are too great. Hence, the public funds the leap frog over business and paves the way for private industry. That’s the benefit of the public funded model. It advances us faster than is natural.
- mdorazio 4y ago
  I'm confused by your comment for a couple reasons. 1) SpaceX doesn't have a complete super heavy lift rocket because they're still iterating the design, they started later than SLS (roughly 2013 vs. 2011), they have to build their own infrastructure and deal with the FAA (NASA/contractors largely don't), and they're designing from an entirely different and likely much better long-term requirement of reusability. Cost is only a side factor if you've been tracking Starship development. 2) This SLS can't actually land on the moon. It's a to-orbit and orbital transfer platform only. 3) Given 1 and 2, it isn't at all clear that "public funds leap frog over business" or that in this case SLS somehow "paves the way for private industry". SLS is untested, horribly expensive to launch, has basically no new technology, and isn't even "done" (this is just Block 1). While I'm happy to have a second super heavy lift rock available, I and many other people strongly question if this was really the best use of the funds as opposed to using those same funds to incentivize SpaceX and its competitors to build more modern rockets free from special interests. Doing the latter seems like it would be the more efficient way to pave a path for private industry.
  - adastra22 4y ago
    Falcon Heavy is classed as a super heavy lift launcher, fyi.
    - mdorazio 4y ago
      Thanks! I thought it was only "heavy" because of the name.
      - adastra22 4y ago
        Falcon 9 is a heavy lift launcher. It’s confusing.
      - panick21_ 4y ago
        All these names and categories are mostly useless anyway. Its totally arbitrary and random. There is no law of nature that to do a moon program you need a super-heavy or whatever.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  > NASA is pure cost, so of course it costs more. Not sure what you mean, NASA can literally just buy stuff from the open market at market prices. NASA only costs more if they do special things. So part of not having large cost is not building some NASA only special thing like SLS/Orion. > And spacex doesn’t have a fully scoped moon base platform. Neither das NASA. > It doesn’t even have a full heavy lift yet. NASA doesn't have that either. They might have one test flight now, and then nothing for many years. Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy over the next couple years could lift literally 100x more then NASA could ever do. And many people have pointed out that distributed launch was an option. Even back in 2011 many people at NASA saw that given Falcon 9 and Atlas 5 launching commercial only was an option. But congress didn't allow that. The fact is, Artemis is already a multi-launch architecture. That could be slightly extended in many ways and make SLS totally unnecessary. This has been shown again and again 100 times since 2011 and even before that. But somehow people still don't get that. Its pretty basic, but I guess we just have to defend whatever architecture some senators from Alabama wanted. > Why? Because the costs are too great. Again, Falcon Heavy is literally a super heavy lift class commercial vehicle. And Starship will commercial and far bigger then SLS. New Glenn and Vulcan are also in development. The idea that NASA needs to spend 20 billion for some slightly bigger rocket that can launch once every few years is absurd. > Hence, the public funds the leap frog over business and paves the way for private industry. I'm sorry, but frankly this is a total misunderstanding of how NASA works. The opposite is true, SLS/Orion are starving the rest of the space industry because they are so absurdly expensive. NASA in 2011 wanted to consider commercial rocket providers for 'SLS' but Senate didn't allow it. Had they done, that money would be 100x better invested now. > That’s the benefit of the public funded model. It advances us faster than is natural. You can't just put public money on a pile light in on fire and then say 'look public is funding a this amazing thing'. The SLS/Orion programs are the perversion of the model you are advocating. Instead of public money funding amazing advisement in space, it goes to support legacy contractors developing products that are totally noncompetitive and backwards. 20 billion and not a single new engine developed, not a single next generation avionics system deployed, no significant advances in structural engineering. This is literally the opposite of innovation and progress.

wallfacer120 4y ago

Democracy and politics is special interests. That's literally all it ever is, all it ever could be.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

SpaceX has a profit motive and backing business. NASA is pure cost, so of course it costs more. And spacex doesn’t have a fully scoped moon base platform. It doesn’t even have a full heavy lift yet. Why? Because the costs are too great. Hence, the public funds the leap frog over business and paves the way for private industry. That’s the benefit of the public funded model. It advances us faster than is natural.

mdorazio 4y ago
I'm confused by your comment for a couple reasons. 1) SpaceX doesn't have a complete super heavy lift rocket because they're still iterating the design, they started later than SLS (roughly 2013 vs. 2011), they have to build their own infrastructure and deal with the FAA (NASA/contractors largely don't), and they're designing from an entirely different and likely much better long-term requirement of reusability. Cost is only a side factor if you've been tracking Starship development. 2) This SLS can't actually land on the moon. It's a to-orbit and orbital transfer platform only. 3) Given 1 and 2, it isn't at all clear that "public funds leap frog over business" or that in this case SLS somehow "paves the way for private industry". SLS is untested, horribly expensive to launch, has basically no new technology, and isn't even "done" (this is just Block 1). While I'm happy to have a second super heavy lift rock available, I and many other people strongly question if this was really the best use of the funds as opposed to using those same funds to incentivize SpaceX and its competitors to build more modern rockets free from special interests. Doing the latter seems like it would be the more efficient way to pave a path for private industry.
- adastra22 4y ago
  Falcon Heavy is classed as a super heavy lift launcher, fyi.
  - mdorazio 4y ago
    Thanks! I thought it was only "heavy" because of the name.
    - adastra22 4y ago
      Falcon 9 is a heavy lift launcher. It’s confusing.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      All these names and categories are mostly useless anyway. Its totally arbitrary and random. There is no law of nature that to do a moon program you need a super-heavy or whatever.
panick21_ 4y ago
> NASA is pure cost, so of course it costs more. Not sure what you mean, NASA can literally just buy stuff from the open market at market prices. NASA only costs more if they do special things. So part of not having large cost is not building some NASA only special thing like SLS/Orion. > And spacex doesn’t have a fully scoped moon base platform. Neither das NASA. > It doesn’t even have a full heavy lift yet. NASA doesn't have that either. They might have one test flight now, and then nothing for many years. Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy over the next couple years could lift literally 100x more then NASA could ever do. And many people have pointed out that distributed launch was an option. Even back in 2011 many people at NASA saw that given Falcon 9 and Atlas 5 launching commercial only was an option. But congress didn't allow that. The fact is, Artemis is already a multi-launch architecture. That could be slightly extended in many ways and make SLS totally unnecessary. This has been shown again and again 100 times since 2011 and even before that. But somehow people still don't get that. Its pretty basic, but I guess we just have to defend whatever architecture some senators from Alabama wanted. > Why? Because the costs are too great. Again, Falcon Heavy is literally a super heavy lift class commercial vehicle. And Starship will commercial and far bigger then SLS. New Glenn and Vulcan are also in development. The idea that NASA needs to spend 20 billion for some slightly bigger rocket that can launch once every few years is absurd. > Hence, the public funds the leap frog over business and paves the way for private industry. I'm sorry, but frankly this is a total misunderstanding of how NASA works. The opposite is true, SLS/Orion are starving the rest of the space industry because they are so absurdly expensive. NASA in 2011 wanted to consider commercial rocket providers for 'SLS' but Senate didn't allow it. Had they done, that money would be 100x better invested now. > That’s the benefit of the public funded model. It advances us faster than is natural. You can't just put public money on a pile light in on fire and then say 'look public is funding a this amazing thing'. The SLS/Orion programs are the perversion of the model you are advocating. Instead of public money funding amazing advisement in space, it goes to support legacy contractors developing products that are totally noncompetitive and backwards. 20 billion and not a single new engine developed, not a single next generation avionics system deployed, no significant advances in structural engineering. This is literally the opposite of innovation and progress.