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The budget, for one. It was 2-3% of the GDP at the time. These commercial efforts have nothing remotely close to that. Also failure was seen as a bigger deal fo
by aflag 3y ago
The budget, for one. It was 2-3% of the GDP at the time. These commercial efforts have nothing remotely close to that. Also failure was seen as a bigger deal for all involved (due to the soviet threat). So, they'd rather waterfall the hell out of that program rather than fail and do things iteratively. I'm sure these commercial projects will eventually succeed. But it takes time.
- spaceman_2020 3y agoWow, 2-3% of the GDP is massive. I didn’t realize it was such a well-funded effort.
- williamDafoe 3y agoI am wondering if 2-3% of GDP is accurate? 2-3% of GDP was spent on 0.2% of the population ... Really?
- pseg134 3y agoWhy do you express the budget as a percentage of GDP instead of inflation adjusted dollars?
- aflag 3y agoTo better represent how big of an effort it was. A non-trivial part of the economy was dedicated to get that project working. I think that is a better representation of the effort.
- xeromal 3y agoOnce numbers are sufficiently large, most humans fail to grasp the amount. Most people can grok a percentage though.