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I think its perfectly fine that a private space company massively funded by billionaires and massive investment funds show the way before government space compa

I think its perfectly fine that a private space company massively funded by billionaires and massive investment funds show the way before government space companies tread the path. Expecting govt funded organizations to innovate will only happen in times of nation-to-nation competition or in times of War. Usually, risky innovation is frowned upon and there is little understandings of mistakes. Learning from many failures - the SpaceX approach - is not tolerated for tax-payer funded companies. And doing it in a decade or two is actually fine. Tech will stabilize by then and there will be more skilled people to hire. Why the rush ?

sofixa 4y ago
Pardon my French, but complete and utter nonsense. > Michael Griffin. Griffin later estimated that SpaceX was around 85% funded by the federal government, mostly through his NASA awards, with the remaining 15% funding split between Elon Musk and other private investors. He felt the amount of government funding was "excessive in his view" compared with what he originally envisioned for the commercial space program. From SpaceX's Wikipedia page. The Falcon 1 which was expandable, nothing special and cost ~$100 million was privately funded, the rest relied on very generous subsidies. (Regardless of Musk's posturing and outright lies) On the contrary, outlandish and expensive (like aerospace) moonshot bets with uncertain financial benefits often happen due to government help, even in times of "unlimited money" which are far from the norm. For starters, Tesla and SpaceX both only happened due to US government subsidies; Airbus, the by far best civilian airplane manufacturer today, only exists because of European government pressure and funding. Bombardier only managed to design the C-series with Canadian government funds. All recent developments in renewables were off the back of massive subsidies for their adoption.
- zpeti 4y ago
  A subsidy is not the same thing as NASA ordering private contracts for actual “products” Spacex didn’t get money handed to them (unlike the corn and oil industries). It got orders to complete certain tasks that NASA thought it might do better than itself. Boeing and many others got these types of orders too. It explains nothing about why spacex succeeded. This “Elon did spacex thanks to government” is a serious misrepresentation of what happened, and if it was true, why is the government funded EU space program struggling so much?
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > Spacex didn’t get money handed to them (unlike the corn and oil industries). It got orders to complete certain tasks that NASA thought it might do better than itself. Boeing and many others got these types of orders too. According to the WTO, those are overgenerous and the same as subsidies (check Airbus' cases against Boeing for illegal subsidies). > It explains nothing about why spacex succeeded Indeed, just money (even government money) is not sufficient. Never said it was, only that it is a flat out lie to say only private funding can innovate and that SpaceX/Tesla did it all on their own and Musk is a self-made man/billionaire.
    - throwawaymaths 4y ago
      > According to the WTO, those are overgenerous SpaceX offers payloads to space at an order of magnitude lower price than its competitors. Infinity times cheaper in the case of the CRS contract, where the competitor has to date delivered 0 kg of human mass to space
      - jackmott42 4y ago
        SpaceX costs might be an order of magnitude cheaper, but their prices are not, yet.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      > According to the WTO, those are overgenerous and the same as subsidies (check Airbus' cases against Boeing for illegal subsidies). Interesting that you have to point to Boeing because no such case exists for SpaceX. And all of those contracts for SpaceX were cheaper then what Arianespace could have offered, or any US competitor. You are just parating lies that ArianeGroup has been spouting for a decade because they have no technical way to compete. Its literally just false propaganda. The reality is ArianeGroup has and had subsidies far, far, far larger then what SpaceX had. The total cost of the original Falcon 9 was maybe 400M and maybe 300M of that was part of the governments program to get private supply for ISS (that the Europeans handed over to the US and SpaceX to do because they couldn't do it cheaply). In comparison Ariane 6 is costing the government 4 billion $ minimum, likely more. If anybody has grounds to complain with the WTO its SpaceX.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  > Falcon 1 which was expandable, nothing special and cost ~$100 million was privately funded Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket to make it to orbit. The first new rocket engine developed in the US for decades. > (Regardless of Musk's posturing and outright lies) Musk has always acknowledged and publicly called out for the COTS contracts as being incredibly important and even saving SpaceX. > For starters, Tesla and SpaceX both only happened due to US government subsidies Both of those are wrong. Tesla was almost 10 years in before they received a public loan, and the accepted it because it was a slightly better deal then they could have gotten privately but they had other funding options. SpaceX Falcon 1 didn't happen because of the government. The governments contract did accelerate the Falcon 9 project however.
  - orbital-decay 4y ago
    > Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket to make it to orbit. That would be Pegasus in 1990, though. > The first new rocket engine developed in the US for decades. There were plenty of engines developed in the US in that timeframe. Merlin in particular was a "spiritual successor" of the Fastrac, and Kestrel was implemented by the former Beal Aerospace engineers who worked on BA-2 before being hired by SpaceX.
    - peterfirefly 4y ago
      Pegasus didn't have much of a path towards bigger payloads, though. (It's launched from underneath an airplane.)
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      > That would be Pegasus in 1990, though. Fair point. > There were plenty of engines developed in the US in that timeframe. Engines that actually flew or at least fully finished development. As far as I know there are none.
      - orbital-decay 4y ago
        BA-810 (by a SpaceX predecessor, huge cheap engine!), Fastrac, RS-68, XRS-2200, TR-106, to name a few. These are only large liquid fuel engines created from scratch which either flew or have been fully tested in the US in a decade before the Merlin-1A. There were many more solids, derivatives, small engines, upper stage engines etc.
- chasd00 4y ago
  the "government funding" of spacex is kind of a misnomer. It wasn't like a grant or some handout. It was payment for a product and service.
cyclecount 4y ago
"Massively funded by billionaires" in this case means that the spoils of this research will be privately owned, yes. But the taxpayer is still paying for about 80% of each rocket that explodes. SpaceX's true innovation is in achieving massive subsidies on collecting this data.
- omnimus 4y ago
  This is the american way. What is surprising to me is that nobody is upset about this. United states presents itself as bastion of freedom and lean gov with minimum taxes. Yet the taxes are comparably pretty high and the gov money seems to go only up to rich companies and individuals who pretend like this money doesn't exist.
  - glimshe 4y ago
    I'm not sure that America presents itself as a "bastion of...lean government with minimum taxes". It's so obviously not true that I'd like to see any statement from the US government in front of International forums or through diplomatic channels in that regard. So if the government is presenting itself this way consistently, I'd like to see where this presentation is taking place (vs promoting liberal values in abstract). However, reduction of taxes and government intervention is a common talking point in internal politics. All things considered, the US has done a better job than, let's say, Europe and Asia in keeping the government out of economic affairs. No sane American libertarian would say, though, that the government has been successful at being "lean with minimum taxes", however it's doing better than most other major countries. Having lived abroad and personally knowing many people living across the world, I can say that keeping taxes "low-ish" and the market "free-ish" is rarely a topic of conversation in the mainstream political debate outside the US.
    - omnimus 4y ago
      It is presented like this in popular culture. At least from my consumption of it. I am not even sure you can say US gov is less involved in economic affairs than the govs of the rest of the world. The taxpayer money has to go somewhere and in other countries it seems to go more towards infrastructure, social causes, healthcare. In US it goes where? Defense and business development? So they are probably more involved in economic affairs. It's true that in europe lower taxes are not a topic. Nobody really expects to pay less taxes. They expect better services and guarantees.

sofixa 4y ago

Pardon my French, but complete and utter nonsense. > Michael Griffin. Griffin later estimated that SpaceX was around 85% funded by the federal government, mostly through his NASA awards, with the remaining 15% funding split between Elon Musk and other private investors. He felt the amount of government funding was "excessive in his view" compared with what he originally envisioned for the commercial space program. From SpaceX's Wikipedia page. The Falcon 1 which was expandable, nothing special and cost ~$100 million was privately funded, the rest relied on very generous subsidies. (Regardless of Musk's posturing and outright lies) On the contrary, outlandish and expensive (like aerospace) moonshot bets with uncertain financial benefits often happen due to government help, even in times of "unlimited money" which are far from the norm. For starters, Tesla and SpaceX both only happened due to US government subsidies; Airbus, the by far best civilian airplane manufacturer today, only exists because of European government pressure and funding. Bombardier only managed to design the C-series with Canadian government funds. All recent developments in renewables were off the back of massive subsidies for their adoption.

zpeti 4y ago
A subsidy is not the same thing as NASA ordering private contracts for actual “products” Spacex didn’t get money handed to them (unlike the corn and oil industries). It got orders to complete certain tasks that NASA thought it might do better than itself. Boeing and many others got these types of orders too. It explains nothing about why spacex succeeded. This “Elon did spacex thanks to government” is a serious misrepresentation of what happened, and if it was true, why is the government funded EU space program struggling so much?
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Spacex didn’t get money handed to them (unlike the corn and oil industries). It got orders to complete certain tasks that NASA thought it might do better than itself. Boeing and many others got these types of orders too. According to the WTO, those are overgenerous and the same as subsidies (check Airbus' cases against Boeing for illegal subsidies). > It explains nothing about why spacex succeeded Indeed, just money (even government money) is not sufficient. Never said it was, only that it is a flat out lie to say only private funding can innovate and that SpaceX/Tesla did it all on their own and Musk is a self-made man/billionaire.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    > According to the WTO, those are overgenerous SpaceX offers payloads to space at an order of magnitude lower price than its competitors. Infinity times cheaper in the case of the CRS contract, where the competitor has to date delivered 0 kg of human mass to space
    - jackmott42 4y ago
      SpaceX costs might be an order of magnitude cheaper, but their prices are not, yet.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    > According to the WTO, those are overgenerous and the same as subsidies (check Airbus' cases against Boeing for illegal subsidies). Interesting that you have to point to Boeing because no such case exists for SpaceX. And all of those contracts for SpaceX were cheaper then what Arianespace could have offered, or any US competitor. You are just parating lies that ArianeGroup has been spouting for a decade because they have no technical way to compete. Its literally just false propaganda. The reality is ArianeGroup has and had subsidies far, far, far larger then what SpaceX had. The total cost of the original Falcon 9 was maybe 400M and maybe 300M of that was part of the governments program to get private supply for ISS (that the Europeans handed over to the US and SpaceX to do because they couldn't do it cheaply). In comparison Ariane 6 is costing the government 4 billion $ minimum, likely more. If anybody has grounds to complain with the WTO its SpaceX.
panick21_ 4y ago
> Falcon 1 which was expandable, nothing special and cost ~$100 million was privately funded Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket to make it to orbit. The first new rocket engine developed in the US for decades. > (Regardless of Musk's posturing and outright lies) Musk has always acknowledged and publicly called out for the COTS contracts as being incredibly important and even saving SpaceX. > For starters, Tesla and SpaceX both only happened due to US government subsidies Both of those are wrong. Tesla was almost 10 years in before they received a public loan, and the accepted it because it was a slightly better deal then they could have gotten privately but they had other funding options. SpaceX Falcon 1 didn't happen because of the government. The governments contract did accelerate the Falcon 9 project however.
- orbital-decay 4y ago
  > Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket to make it to orbit. That would be Pegasus in 1990, though. > The first new rocket engine developed in the US for decades. There were plenty of engines developed in the US in that timeframe. Merlin in particular was a "spiritual successor" of the Fastrac, and Kestrel was implemented by the former Beal Aerospace engineers who worked on BA-2 before being hired by SpaceX.
  - peterfirefly 4y ago
    Pegasus didn't have much of a path towards bigger payloads, though. (It's launched from underneath an airplane.)
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    > That would be Pegasus in 1990, though. Fair point. > There were plenty of engines developed in the US in that timeframe. Engines that actually flew or at least fully finished development. As far as I know there are none.
    - orbital-decay 4y ago
      BA-810 (by a SpaceX predecessor, huge cheap engine!), Fastrac, RS-68, XRS-2200, TR-106, to name a few. These are only large liquid fuel engines created from scratch which either flew or have been fully tested in the US in a decade before the Merlin-1A. There were many more solids, derivatives, small engines, upper stage engines etc.
chasd00 4y ago
the "government funding" of spacex is kind of a misnomer. It wasn't like a grant or some handout. It was payment for a product and service.

cyclecount 4y ago

"Massively funded by billionaires" in this case means that the spoils of this research will be privately owned, yes. But the taxpayer is still paying for about 80% of each rocket that explodes. SpaceX's true innovation is in achieving massive subsidies on collecting this data.

omnimus 4y ago
This is the american way. What is surprising to me is that nobody is upset about this. United states presents itself as bastion of freedom and lean gov with minimum taxes. Yet the taxes are comparably pretty high and the gov money seems to go only up to rich companies and individuals who pretend like this money doesn't exist.
- glimshe 4y ago
  I'm not sure that America presents itself as a "bastion of...lean government with minimum taxes". It's so obviously not true that I'd like to see any statement from the US government in front of International forums or through diplomatic channels in that regard. So if the government is presenting itself this way consistently, I'd like to see where this presentation is taking place (vs promoting liberal values in abstract). However, reduction of taxes and government intervention is a common talking point in internal politics. All things considered, the US has done a better job than, let's say, Europe and Asia in keeping the government out of economic affairs. No sane American libertarian would say, though, that the government has been successful at being "lean with minimum taxes", however it's doing better than most other major countries. Having lived abroad and personally knowing many people living across the world, I can say that keeping taxes "low-ish" and the market "free-ish" is rarely a topic of conversation in the mainstream political debate outside the US.
  - omnimus 4y ago
    It is presented like this in popular culture. At least from my consumption of it. I am not even sure you can say US gov is less involved in economic affairs than the govs of the rest of the world. The taxpayer money has to go somewhere and in other countries it seems to go more towards infrastructure, social causes, healthcare. In US it goes where? Defense and business development? So they are probably more involved in economic affairs. It's true that in europe lower taxes are not a topic. Nobody really expects to pay less taxes. They expect better services and guarantees.