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It would cost 10x as much and would be 5 years behind schedule, intended to be the main vehicle for several decades (rather than soon to be replaced by an even

It would cost 10x as much and would be 5 years behind schedule, intended to be the main vehicle for several decades (rather than soon to be replaced by an even more capable vehicle), entirely expendable, still stuck to its original parameters due to risk averseness and not at all commercially competitive. See: SLS, Space Shuttle (and to a lesser extent, Ariane 5 & 6) Falcon reusability was perfected through lots of explosions in landing attempts, good luck getting NASA or ESA to risk that given how dumb the average taxpayer can be about iterative development like that.

CrazyStat 4y ago
> Falcon reusability was perfected through lots of explosions in landing attempts, good luck getting NASA or ESA to risk that given how dumb the average taxpayer can be about iterative development like that. It's even worse than just risk averseness. There was a very telling comment by the CEO of ArianeGroup a few years ago[1] about why they weren't investing in reusable rockets--they were afraid that it would be too efficient, so they would end up laying off workers because they wouldn't have enough demand for new rockets. In the twisted world of government programs efficiency is often seen as a bad thing. Space programs are jobs programs. The SLS program was hamstrung by Congress requiring that it reuse 50-year-old Space shuttle tech because it's a jobs program. Getting to space efficiently isn't even a priority. More recently ESA has reversed course[2] because SpaceX is eating their lunch, but they're still probably a good decade out from having a reusable rocket, and it's unlikely they would be heading that direction at all if not for the pressure from SpaceX. [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/ariane-chief-seems-frustrated-with-spacex-for-driving-down-launch-costs/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/ariane-chief-seems-f... [2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/european-leaders-say-an-immediate-response-needed-to-the-rise-of-spacex/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/european-leaders-say...
- AustinDev 4y ago
  This is exactly the reason I don't do R&D work for the DoD anymore. Cost plus contracts incentivize the performer to have more staff than required to make more profit and to never deliver anything early or over perform in any way. I just couldn't live with myself if I min-max'd the situation.
- dotnet00 4y ago
  To be fair, their concern about having so few payloads that they wouldn't be building enough boosters isn't completely wrong for Europe. There is some merit to the idea that they needed to maintain a large workforce trained in rocketry to hold onto their capabilities and that government funded programs are good for that until private industry firmly takes hold. The issue of course was that they were giving into stagnation and assuming that demand wouldn't grow to meet supply, while SpaceX took it the other way and came up with the demand to utilize the supply they had created (also helps that Russia torpedoed its own commercial launch industry and all other providers are stuck in a delayed generational transition, highlighting the unpredictability of demand in the industry). Now that European launch companies are starting to make progress, perhaps this need for government 'protection' will also go away. It desperately needs to go away in the US since we already have several private companies who've made it to orbit (plus a nearly 20 year tech lead on the rest of the world courtesy SpaceX) and hopefully SLS's obsolete-ness will quickly become too hard to ignore when the Artemis 3 crew is shown transferring from the cramped Orion capsule to the spacious HLS.
pavon 4y ago
And to add to this, SpaceX isn't enriching Musk, quite the opposite. Half of his PayPal wealth was invested into SpaceX to develop Falcon 1 (the other half was invested in Tesla). Then SpaceX was awarded a NASA contract to develop Falcon 9 and Dragon. All the profit they made from commercial use of Falcon 9 was reinvested into developing Falcon Heavy, and all the profit SpaceX has made since has been reinvested into Starlink and Starship. Musk hasn't gotten any return on his investment into SpaceX, and rather continues to invest more money (earned from Tesla) into SpaceX to speed Starship development. I'm not saying this to play up Musk as some philanthropist, but to clarify that it is the government that has benefited from the investment that Musk and other investors have put into SpaceX, rather than the government enriching these investors. Every other rocket made prior to SpaceX, the full development and operation was funded by the government, and the contractors profited immensely, so it is weird to call out SpaceX/Musk for this when they are one of the few exceptions to that rule (along with RocketLab). But also to point out that SpaceX is a passion project and would likely never have accomplished the things it did if it was run primarily as a profit-making endeavor, or as a utilitarian government project.

CrazyStat 4y ago

> Falcon reusability was perfected through lots of explosions in landing attempts, good luck getting NASA or ESA to risk that given how dumb the average taxpayer can be about iterative development like that. It's even worse than just risk averseness. There was a very telling comment by the CEO of ArianeGroup a few years ago[1] about why they weren't investing in reusable rockets--they were afraid that it would be too efficient, so they would end up laying off workers because they wouldn't have enough demand for new rockets. In the twisted world of government programs efficiency is often seen as a bad thing. Space programs are jobs programs. The SLS program was hamstrung by Congress requiring that it reuse 50-year-old Space shuttle tech because it's a jobs program. Getting to space efficiently isn't even a priority. More recently ESA has reversed course[2] because SpaceX is eating their lunch, but they're still probably a good decade out from having a reusable rocket, and it's unlikely they would be heading that direction at all if not for the pressure from SpaceX. [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/ariane-chief-seems-frustrated-with-spacex-for-driving-down-launch-costs/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/ariane-chief-seems-f... [2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/european-leaders-say-an-immediate-response-needed-to-the-rise-of-spacex/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/european-leaders-say...

AustinDev 4y ago
This is exactly the reason I don't do R&D work for the DoD anymore. Cost plus contracts incentivize the performer to have more staff than required to make more profit and to never deliver anything early or over perform in any way. I just couldn't live with myself if I min-max'd the situation.
dotnet00 4y ago
To be fair, their concern about having so few payloads that they wouldn't be building enough boosters isn't completely wrong for Europe. There is some merit to the idea that they needed to maintain a large workforce trained in rocketry to hold onto their capabilities and that government funded programs are good for that until private industry firmly takes hold. The issue of course was that they were giving into stagnation and assuming that demand wouldn't grow to meet supply, while SpaceX took it the other way and came up with the demand to utilize the supply they had created (also helps that Russia torpedoed its own commercial launch industry and all other providers are stuck in a delayed generational transition, highlighting the unpredictability of demand in the industry). Now that European launch companies are starting to make progress, perhaps this need for government 'protection' will also go away. It desperately needs to go away in the US since we already have several private companies who've made it to orbit (plus a nearly 20 year tech lead on the rest of the world courtesy SpaceX) and hopefully SLS's obsolete-ness will quickly become too hard to ignore when the Artemis 3 crew is shown transferring from the cramped Orion capsule to the spacious HLS.

pavon 4y ago

And to add to this, SpaceX isn't enriching Musk, quite the opposite. Half of his PayPal wealth was invested into SpaceX to develop Falcon 1 (the other half was invested in Tesla). Then SpaceX was awarded a NASA contract to develop Falcon 9 and Dragon. All the profit they made from commercial use of Falcon 9 was reinvested into developing Falcon Heavy, and all the profit SpaceX has made since has been reinvested into Starlink and Starship. Musk hasn't gotten any return on his investment into SpaceX, and rather continues to invest more money (earned from Tesla) into SpaceX to speed Starship development. I'm not saying this to play up Musk as some philanthropist, but to clarify that it is the government that has benefited from the investment that Musk and other investors have put into SpaceX, rather than the government enriching these investors. Every other rocket made prior to SpaceX, the full development and operation was funded by the government, and the contractors profited immensely, so it is weird to call out SpaceX/Musk for this when they are one of the few exceptions to that rule (along with RocketLab). But also to point out that SpaceX is a passion project and would likely never have accomplished the things it did if it was run primarily as a profit-making endeavor, or as a utilitarian government project.