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>Before SpaceX started to do it, the concept of iterating to that degree on rockets was unthinkable. I'm pretty sure that was what NASA was going to do all the
by pydry 2y ago
>Before SpaceX started to do it, the concept of iterating to that degree on rockets was unthinkable.
I'm pretty sure that was what NASA was going to do all the way back in the 70s before their funding got slashed. It was a novel idea but not a novel idea that SpaceX was particularly responsible for, just one they threw capital at because the government stopped caring after the space race.
Nuclear power research, by contrast, never really suffered from a lack of available funds. They were throwing money at mini reactors back in the 90s, saying all the same stuff about how mass production would bring down the price.
- pieix 2y agoNASA funding far exceeds SpaceX’s and always has. It shouldn’t take 4% of the US federal budget (NASA funding during Apollo) to run a hardware-rich design process!
- pydry 2y agoApollo was wound down because the government wanted NASA to focus on the space shuttle and all sorts of other things as well as slashing the total budget by a huge amount. So, while in theory it may have had the money, in practice it did not.
- pieix 2y agoThe Shuttle cost $48 billion to develop in inflation-adjusted dollars — contrast this with the ~$5B spent on Starship development thus far. It’s hard to defend the claim that NASA is or ever has been under-funded.
- msandford 2y agoNASAs "do stuff" budget is super small because their "keep all the experts on staff" budget is insatiable. It's not entirely bad though, I'm sure lots of those folks are doing good and important stuff. But I don't think the balance between employment and building things is quite right. At least to my tastes.