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Estimated project cost is $13B Or: about 130,000 $100k single family homes. In other words, you could build and gift a single family home to nearby every sing

Estimated project cost is $13B Or: about 130,000 $100k single family homes. In other words, you could build and gift a single family home to nearby every single homeless person in California for this cost of this rocket. Would I rather waste money on a redundant, congressional committee rocket, or waste money giving people houses? Without spacex, the rocket is worthwhile. But with spacex, it is a complete waste of time and money.

loudmax 4y ago
Arguably NIMBYism is a bigger factor to the lack of housing than the cost of building the houses.
- strawhatguy 4y ago
  yes, everyone says there ought to be more housing, but not here...
strawhatguy 4y ago
Still bothers me that un-serious folk will post about how much spacex is 'wasting' on space travel, yet say nadda when the gov wastes like 4000x more. Kudos on running the numbers!
- abrax3141 4y ago
  I think the complaint is (usually) a bit more nuanced than that. I, for example, am totally encouraging of SX to take over all earth orbital works, as well as the moon. NASA is wasting its time and our money in those areas. However, I think it’s a waste for anyone, SpaceX or NASA, to send people anyplace outside of the moon. (And even putting people on the moon again is of questionable value.) NASA should stick to what it does best: Remote robots and instruments.
advisedwang 4y ago
Where are you finding all those $100k single family homes? The median CA house is $760,800 [1]. (I know there's houses cheaper than the median, but if you are buying up 130k houses, likely more than the entire available stock, you will have to go quite high up the price listing.) At that price, you're talking 17,087 houses. There are 161,548 homeless people in CA [2] [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-home-price-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-home... [2] https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/ca/ https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/ca/
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  I’m saying build them. 800 square foot slab on grade 2 bedroom homes with block construction just like we did in the 1940s. You absolutely could build these for $100k/ea at scale.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    Would you want to live in that? Because I wouldn't, nor would I want to live anywhere near a development like that.
    - thepasswordis 4y ago
      I CURRENTLY live in that. Holy shit what an unbelievably insulting comment. “Would you really live in that?!?!!” Uh, yeah? Because I already do? And love my house? And maybe that’s why I’m suggesting that specific style of house as a solution? Because I currently live in one with the rest of my family. And before you start thinking “oh poor him”. I can almost guarantee you that I make more money than 99% of the people posting here. Could you believe the poor sap who might live in a place like this? https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/935-E-56th-St-Austin-TX-78751/29406631_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/935-E-56th-St-Austin-TX-7... https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4507-Depew-Ave-Austin-TX-78751/29401839_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4507-Depew-Ave-Austin-TX-...
      - awofford 4y ago
        I agree with everything you’re saying here. But I would not want to be the poor sap that paid $625k to live in a place like that. Those prices are insane.
        thepasswordis 4y ago
        Completely agree these prices are nuts. Most of it is location though. Even still: lots of these places were selling for 100-200k 5 years ago.
Night_Thastus 4y ago
Money has never been the issue. There has always been money that could have been diverted to "fix" the homeless problem, at both the state and federal level. If that's all it was, we'd have solved it by now. Homelessness is far more complicated than just money, and throwing it at the problem won't fix it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
readthenotes1 4y ago
For $100k, you can get 1/8 of a tiny home for a homeless person in LA. In other words, if you leave it to the government to pay for the work, you will just be astounded by how much it costs. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-05/lopez-column-hhh-homeless-housing-costs https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-05/lopez-co...
echelon 4y ago
$13B isn't that big of a government expenditure, all things considered. That pork pays for a lot of engineering salaries in places like Alabama. Senators will fight tooth and nail to keep it. With only SpaceX, there's a risk of the technology becoming expensive or not doing what the government wants. This hedge de-risks that scenario and is worth the cost alone. Once we have several commercial rocket families to choose from, we can reconsider. In the meantime, we've already paid for SLS and it isn't going away - and that's not a sunk cost fallacy. There are mission specific payloads SLS will be better suited for.
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  Is wasting money on rocket builders in Alabama more valuable than wasting money on home builders in California?
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    It is always preferable to support high tech industry which can move whole country forward instead of few bricklayers, which won't move country forward.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
When the government gives money to NASA, where does it go? You all make it sound like it goes to about 5 greedy old geezers in a cigar smoke filled room. It mostly goes to tens of thousands of scientists, engineers, and laborers.
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  It goes to engineers and materials scientists? And welders and builders and truck drivers and everything else. And what about if that money was spent on building homes? Those guys framing the houses aren’t as valuable as the guys running modeling software in an office? Do you think the truck drivers in Alabama are more valuable than truck drivers in California? Put in the same input of labor, and either get 130,000 single family homes AND the economic benefit of all the work to build them, or get a few big rockets which are about 20 years behind their nearest competitor.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    > get a few big rockets which are about 20 years behind their nearest competitor. What existing competitors are built to bring humans to the Moon?
robbrawkly 4y ago
Portland made house for unhoused and it was astonishingly $400K/person. I would guess it'd be around that in CA.
- readthenotes1 4y ago
  Only twice as much in LA
ghaff 4y ago
Lots of empty houses already exist in low LCOL areas. Don't even need to build new ones.

loudmax 4y ago

Arguably NIMBYism is a bigger factor to the lack of housing than the cost of building the houses.

strawhatguy 4y ago
yes, everyone says there ought to be more housing, but not here...

strawhatguy 4y ago

Still bothers me that un-serious folk will post about how much spacex is 'wasting' on space travel, yet say nadda when the gov wastes like 4000x more. Kudos on running the numbers!

abrax3141 4y ago
I think the complaint is (usually) a bit more nuanced than that. I, for example, am totally encouraging of SX to take over all earth orbital works, as well as the moon. NASA is wasting its time and our money in those areas. However, I think it’s a waste for anyone, SpaceX or NASA, to send people anyplace outside of the moon. (And even putting people on the moon again is of questionable value.) NASA should stick to what it does best: Remote robots and instruments.

advisedwang 4y ago

Where are you finding all those $100k single family homes? The median CA house is $760,800 [1]. (I know there's houses cheaper than the median, but if you are buying up 130k houses, likely more than the entire available stock, you will have to go quite high up the price listing.) At that price, you're talking 17,087 houses. There are 161,548 homeless people in CA [2] [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-home-price-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-home... [2] https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/ca/ https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/ca/

thepasswordis 4y ago
I’m saying build them. 800 square foot slab on grade 2 bedroom homes with block construction just like we did in the 1940s. You absolutely could build these for $100k/ea at scale.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Would you want to live in that? Because I wouldn't, nor would I want to live anywhere near a development like that.
  - thepasswordis 4y ago
    I CURRENTLY live in that. Holy shit what an unbelievably insulting comment. “Would you really live in that?!?!!” Uh, yeah? Because I already do? And love my house? And maybe that’s why I’m suggesting that specific style of house as a solution? Because I currently live in one with the rest of my family. And before you start thinking “oh poor him”. I can almost guarantee you that I make more money than 99% of the people posting here. Could you believe the poor sap who might live in a place like this? https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/935-E-56th-St-Austin-TX-78751/29406631_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/935-E-56th-St-Austin-TX-7... https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4507-Depew-Ave-Austin-TX-78751/29401839_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4507-Depew-Ave-Austin-TX-...
    - awofford 4y ago
      I agree with everything you’re saying here. But I would not want to be the poor sap that paid $625k to live in a place like that. Those prices are insane.
      - thepasswordis 4y ago
        Completely agree these prices are nuts. Most of it is location though. Even still: lots of these places were selling for 100-200k 5 years ago.

Night_Thastus 4y ago

Money has never been the issue. There has always been money that could have been diverted to "fix" the homeless problem, at both the state and federal level. If that's all it was, we'd have solved it by now. Homelessness is far more complicated than just money, and throwing it at the problem won't fix it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

readthenotes1 4y ago

For $100k, you can get 1/8 of a tiny home for a homeless person in LA. In other words, if you leave it to the government to pay for the work, you will just be astounded by how much it costs. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-05/lopez-column-hhh-homeless-housing-costs https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-05/lopez-co...

echelon 4y ago

$13B isn't that big of a government expenditure, all things considered. That pork pays for a lot of engineering salaries in places like Alabama. Senators will fight tooth and nail to keep it. With only SpaceX, there's a risk of the technology becoming expensive or not doing what the government wants. This hedge de-risks that scenario and is worth the cost alone. Once we have several commercial rocket families to choose from, we can reconsider. In the meantime, we've already paid for SLS and it isn't going away - and that's not a sunk cost fallacy. There are mission specific payloads SLS will be better suited for.

thepasswordis 4y ago
Is wasting money on rocket builders in Alabama more valuable than wasting money on home builders in California?
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  It is always preferable to support high tech industry which can move whole country forward instead of few bricklayers, which won't move country forward.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

When the government gives money to NASA, where does it go? You all make it sound like it goes to about 5 greedy old geezers in a cigar smoke filled room. It mostly goes to tens of thousands of scientists, engineers, and laborers.

thepasswordis 4y ago
It goes to engineers and materials scientists? And welders and builders and truck drivers and everything else. And what about if that money was spent on building homes? Those guys framing the houses aren’t as valuable as the guys running modeling software in an office? Do you think the truck drivers in Alabama are more valuable than truck drivers in California? Put in the same input of labor, and either get 130,000 single family homes AND the economic benefit of all the work to build them, or get a few big rockets which are about 20 years behind their nearest competitor.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  > get a few big rockets which are about 20 years behind their nearest competitor. What existing competitors are built to bring humans to the Moon?

robbrawkly 4y ago

Portland made house for unhoused and it was astonishingly $400K/person. I would guess it'd be around that in CA.

readthenotes1 4y ago
Only twice as much in LA

ghaff 4y ago

Lots of empty houses already exist in low LCOL areas. Don't even need to build new ones.