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Just a little reminder: Space X is leveraging decades of research and billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars put into this industry already. It didn’t start

by sidlls 4y ago

Just a little reminder: Space X is leveraging decades of research and billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars put into this industry already. It didn’t start from scratch as some scrappy upstart that is now showing some sloppy, bloated government boondoggle up. Not to mention you’re comparing apples to oranges. I suppose a decade from now after NASA has done all the work to lay the foundation when Musk comes in and brags about how much cheaper his version is we’ll see a similar narrative.

rob74 4y ago
True, but SpaceX is at least advancing the "state of the art" with reusable rockets, whereas Artemis is just recreating a single-use moon rocket, which was already done with Saturn 5 more than 50 years ago.
- kunai 4y ago
  The 'state of the art' that SpaceX is pushing is nearly entirely a software thing aided by Falcon's unique engine arrangement. Hardware-wise Falcons are no more advanced than an SLS core stage, and are likely even ore technically primitive than most LVs. If SLS' mission criteria included an emphasis on reusability, NASA would have a fully reusable booster + core stage by now. This decision was entirely due to doctrine. STS was designed as a mostly reusable product and failed costs-wise, so the government basically forced NASA to go with something expendable instead. It is genuinely impressive that SpaceX proved that reusable launch vehicles can be made cost-effective, but it's nowhere near the kind of massive quantum leap that SpaceX's legion of hardcore followers seems to be convinced it is. Everything on a Falcon or a Dragon is public domain 60s technology besides the code and guidance hardware (based on COTS components). The same is likely be true of Starship, which explains a lot of the significant teething issues it has suffered over the past several flight tests.
  - georgeg23 4y ago
    The Falcon 9 booster landing also borrowed a lot from DC-X development. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
  - szundi 4y ago
    We are always standing on the shoulders of giants. That is going to be the case always in the future. However it is a question what SLS will do when they run out of these engines that's cost is in the same ballpark per piece as a full Falcon heavy. Or something like that. And those are just the engines. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-staggering-146-million-for-each-sls-rocket-engine/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-stag...
    - georgeg23 4y ago
      They have a low cost replacement engine being completed and tested very soon.
  - kiratp 4y ago
    SpaceX is making significant breakthroughs that you can appreciate if you understand the tech. > As of 2019, only three full-flow staged combustion rocket engines had ever progressed sufficiently to be tested on test stands; the Soviet Energomash RD-270 project in the 1960s, the US government-funded Aerojet Rocketdyne Integrated powerhead demonstration project in the mid-2000s,[6] and SpaceX's flight capable Raptor engine first test-fired in February 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staged_combustion_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staged_combustion_cycle If you want to learn more https://youtu.be/LbH1ZDImaI8 https://youtu.be/LbH1ZDImaI8
  - gruturo 4y ago
    > Everything on a Falcon or a Dragon is public domain 60s technology besides the code and guidance hardware What a nice way to belittle the enormous significance of their achievements. Reliability, total mass to LEO/GEO/TLI/Whatever, and $/kg in each of these cases, coupled with an amazing launch cadence, are where you can see the magnitude of the progress they've enabled. Whether you do it with expendable or reusable vehicles, burning RP-1, methane or a custom mixture of concentrated Jack Daniels and dog hair, doesn't really matter. They do it reliably, often and amazingly cheaply. SLS does none of that, and neither do any of the other launch systems. Also if you value their improvements so little over "public domain 60s technology", how come nobody else did it in 50 years? Come on, Elon is immensely questionable, but SpaceX is awesome (thanks in no small part to Gwynne Shotwell!) and SLS is... not, but at least it finally launched and didn't even blow up, so let's celebrate that instead of turning this into an opportunity to disparage them.
  - hoseja 4y ago
    Mhm, say, when in the 60s have they made a full-flow staged-combustion methalox engine? Bare-skin stainless steel rockets?
googlryas 4y ago
Shouldn't NASA launches be cheaper, or at least on budget, if they're leveraging all that as well?
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  Not necessarily... R&D is expensive regardless and SLS won't have as many launches to amortize across
  - jryle70 4y ago
    You are going in circle here. SLS won't have many launches because it's too expensive, and they can't build more than one per year. The cost and the tendency of its launch being scrubbed makes it a risk for any time sensitive mission, as shown by NASA decision to switch Europa Clipper to Falcon Heavy: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/325106-europa-clipper-ditches-nasa-mega-rocket-will-launch-on-spacex-falcon-heavy-instead https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/325106-europa-clipper-di...
randomsearch 4y ago
SpaceX seemed very scrappy to me, certainly an upstart, and their costs seem offer of magnitude lower. They also seem to have pushed the boundaries of technology, eg by landing boosters - not just on land but also at sea. I think the accusation that they just copied existing technology is untrue.
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
I think it’s fair to say that SpaceX has done innovative work here too. And if the SLS and Starship launches go as planned, SpaceX will have launched Starship many times before Artemis launches a second time. And Starship will be able to launch for 1/30th the cost, at a significantly higher launch cadence. I will personally be surprised if SLS still exists in a decade. Just remember I am saying “if Starship development goes according to plan” which I think is reasonably likely but of course not guaranteed.
- sidlls 4y ago
  Yes, it's fair to say SpaceX has done innovative work. It's not fair to compare the cost of something that is an incremental improvement on a huge body of engineering knowledge to what NASA is doing, here. And this comparison always comes up in the context of "evil inefficient gubmint stealing our tax dollars versus awesome private corporation showing how it should be done".
  - jryle70 4y ago
    > It's not fair to compare the cost of something that is an incremental improvement on a huge body of engineering knowledge to what NASA is doing, here. Just to be perfectly clear, are you saying SLS development also results in a lot of engineering knowledge? If so can you highlight what that knowledge would be -- propulsion, material, efficiency, avionics, manufacturing?
  - philwelch 4y ago
    What NASA is doing here is an incremental improvement on a huge body of engineering knowledge, at best. SLS is a bunch of Shuttle technology assembled into a multi-billion-dollar disposable rocket, not to serve the needs of NASA but as a Congressional jobs program for legacy contractors.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    From an engineering point of view, I don’t understand how you can imply that “what nasa is doing here” is more impressive than what SpaceX is doing. Perhaps I have misread your implication, but I believe the SpaceX rocket to be far more innovative than SLS. As far as government spending, I’m far from a free market advocate. But I would rather see the government spend money effectively. If SLS will cost, say, ten billion dollars over the next decade to complete three more flights, I’d rather see the government buy $1B in services from SpaceX to ensure they finish development of Starship, securing rides on a rocket which is 1/30th the launch costs, and then spend the other $9 billion on social housing programs to alleviate homelessness in the country. My point is not that I believe free markets will magically solve any problem we can imagine, but that a specific solution to the problem of heavy lift space vehicles that shows real promise is already nearly complete. I simply believe it would be a better use of funds to invest in that system than to continue to burn money on SLS. And the government understands this as it has awarded some money to SpaceX for moon missions with Starship. So they’re finding the much cheaper private option and the very expensive NASA option. And I just think that’s a poor use of funds given what each project promises.
hoseja 4y ago
Everyone else can leverage it too. Why don't they?
rrss 4y ago
NASA and contractors are also leveraging decades of research and billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars put into this industry already, or have the same opportunity for leverage and are failing to effectively leverage it.

by sidlls 4y ago

rob74 4y ago

True, but SpaceX is at least advancing the "state of the art" with reusable rockets, whereas Artemis is just recreating a single-use moon rocket, which was already done with Saturn 5 more than 50 years ago.

kunai 4y ago
The 'state of the art' that SpaceX is pushing is nearly entirely a software thing aided by Falcon's unique engine arrangement. Hardware-wise Falcons are no more advanced than an SLS core stage, and are likely even ore technically primitive than most LVs. If SLS' mission criteria included an emphasis on reusability, NASA would have a fully reusable booster + core stage by now. This decision was entirely due to doctrine. STS was designed as a mostly reusable product and failed costs-wise, so the government basically forced NASA to go with something expendable instead. It is genuinely impressive that SpaceX proved that reusable launch vehicles can be made cost-effective, but it's nowhere near the kind of massive quantum leap that SpaceX's legion of hardcore followers seems to be convinced it is. Everything on a Falcon or a Dragon is public domain 60s technology besides the code and guidance hardware (based on COTS components). The same is likely be true of Starship, which explains a lot of the significant teething issues it has suffered over the past several flight tests.
- georgeg23 4y ago
  The Falcon 9 booster landing also borrowed a lot from DC-X development. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
- szundi 4y ago
  We are always standing on the shoulders of giants. That is going to be the case always in the future. However it is a question what SLS will do when they run out of these engines that's cost is in the same ballpark per piece as a full Falcon heavy. Or something like that. And those are just the engines. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-staggering-146-million-for-each-sls-rocket-engine/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-stag...
  - georgeg23 4y ago
    They have a low cost replacement engine being completed and tested very soon.
- kiratp 4y ago
  SpaceX is making significant breakthroughs that you can appreciate if you understand the tech. > As of 2019, only three full-flow staged combustion rocket engines had ever progressed sufficiently to be tested on test stands; the Soviet Energomash RD-270 project in the 1960s, the US government-funded Aerojet Rocketdyne Integrated powerhead demonstration project in the mid-2000s,[6] and SpaceX's flight capable Raptor engine first test-fired in February 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staged_combustion_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staged_combustion_cycle If you want to learn more https://youtu.be/LbH1ZDImaI8 https://youtu.be/LbH1ZDImaI8
- gruturo 4y ago
  > Everything on a Falcon or a Dragon is public domain 60s technology besides the code and guidance hardware What a nice way to belittle the enormous significance of their achievements. Reliability, total mass to LEO/GEO/TLI/Whatever, and $/kg in each of these cases, coupled with an amazing launch cadence, are where you can see the magnitude of the progress they've enabled. Whether you do it with expendable or reusable vehicles, burning RP-1, methane or a custom mixture of concentrated Jack Daniels and dog hair, doesn't really matter. They do it reliably, often and amazingly cheaply. SLS does none of that, and neither do any of the other launch systems. Also if you value their improvements so little over "public domain 60s technology", how come nobody else did it in 50 years? Come on, Elon is immensely questionable, but SpaceX is awesome (thanks in no small part to Gwynne Shotwell!) and SLS is... not, but at least it finally launched and didn't even blow up, so let's celebrate that instead of turning this into an opportunity to disparage them.
- hoseja 4y ago
  Mhm, say, when in the 60s have they made a full-flow staged-combustion methalox engine? Bare-skin stainless steel rockets?

googlryas 4y ago

Shouldn't NASA launches be cheaper, or at least on budget, if they're leveraging all that as well?

Rebelgecko 4y ago
Not necessarily... R&D is expensive regardless and SLS won't have as many launches to amortize across
- jryle70 4y ago
  You are going in circle here. SLS won't have many launches because it's too expensive, and they can't build more than one per year. The cost and the tendency of its launch being scrubbed makes it a risk for any time sensitive mission, as shown by NASA decision to switch Europa Clipper to Falcon Heavy: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/325106-europa-clipper-ditches-nasa-mega-rocket-will-launch-on-spacex-falcon-heavy-instead https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/325106-europa-clipper-di...

randomsearch 4y ago

SpaceX seemed very scrappy to me, certainly an upstart, and their costs seem offer of magnitude lower. They also seem to have pushed the boundaries of technology, eg by landing boosters - not just on land but also at sea. I think the accusation that they just copied existing technology is untrue.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

I think it’s fair to say that SpaceX has done innovative work here too. And if the SLS and Starship launches go as planned, SpaceX will have launched Starship many times before Artemis launches a second time. And Starship will be able to launch for 1/30th the cost, at a significantly higher launch cadence. I will personally be surprised if SLS still exists in a decade. Just remember I am saying “if Starship development goes according to plan” which I think is reasonably likely but of course not guaranteed.

sidlls 4y ago
Yes, it's fair to say SpaceX has done innovative work. It's not fair to compare the cost of something that is an incremental improvement on a huge body of engineering knowledge to what NASA is doing, here. And this comparison always comes up in the context of "evil inefficient gubmint stealing our tax dollars versus awesome private corporation showing how it should be done".
- jryle70 4y ago
  > It's not fair to compare the cost of something that is an incremental improvement on a huge body of engineering knowledge to what NASA is doing, here. Just to be perfectly clear, are you saying SLS development also results in a lot of engineering knowledge? If so can you highlight what that knowledge would be -- propulsion, material, efficiency, avionics, manufacturing?
- philwelch 4y ago
  What NASA is doing here is an incremental improvement on a huge body of engineering knowledge, at best. SLS is a bunch of Shuttle technology assembled into a multi-billion-dollar disposable rocket, not to serve the needs of NASA but as a Congressional jobs program for legacy contractors.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  From an engineering point of view, I don’t understand how you can imply that “what nasa is doing here” is more impressive than what SpaceX is doing. Perhaps I have misread your implication, but I believe the SpaceX rocket to be far more innovative than SLS. As far as government spending, I’m far from a free market advocate. But I would rather see the government spend money effectively. If SLS will cost, say, ten billion dollars over the next decade to complete three more flights, I’d rather see the government buy $1B in services from SpaceX to ensure they finish development of Starship, securing rides on a rocket which is 1/30th the launch costs, and then spend the other $9 billion on social housing programs to alleviate homelessness in the country. My point is not that I believe free markets will magically solve any problem we can imagine, but that a specific solution to the problem of heavy lift space vehicles that shows real promise is already nearly complete. I simply believe it would be a better use of funds to invest in that system than to continue to burn money on SLS. And the government understands this as it has awarded some money to SpaceX for moon missions with Starship. So they’re finding the much cheaper private option and the very expensive NASA option. And I just think that’s a poor use of funds given what each project promises.

hoseja 4y ago

Everyone else can leverage it too. Why don't they?

rrss 4y ago

NASA and contractors are also leveraging decades of research and billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars put into this industry already, or have the same opportunity for leverage and are failing to effectively leverage it.