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>Technically NASA contracted with SpaceX (and several other companies as well, such as Boeing) to develop crew–rated versions of their rockets No, the initial
by xoa 2y ago
>Technically NASA contracted with SpaceX (and several other companies as well, such as Boeing) to develop crew–rated versions of their rockets
No, the initial NASA contract was for cargo delivery via the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which dated to 2006. CRS and CC came significantly afterwards. Momentum did build but it was in fits and starts. It's a pretty fascinating bit of history in turns of twists and turns on both the political and technical sides, I highly recommend taking a look at the book Liftoff if you're at all curious. Like, even if it was selfish motivations it's worth noting that Commercial Crew probably would not have happened in 2010 without the support of Boeing itself.
>But also some subsidies in there, and a few billion wasted on Boeing.
Eh, I wouldn't fully agree with this sentiment honestly. The future we've arrived at was definitely not clear when the contracts were signed, and shit happens. If you're really serious about developing a new capability and place a few fully independent investment bets and some pay off handsomely while others are a bust, I wouldn't call it a waste because if you just couldn't know which would work and which wouldn't. That's just how it works. It's worth noting here too that Boeing has lost enormous amounts of money on its failures with Starliner. NASA has held them to the fixed price aspect of the contract. I suppose an argument could be made that NASA was more generous with milestone payments then they might have been, but at the same time that ultimately was Boeing shooting itself in the foot and NASA giving them rope because getting some money earlier didn't change the total pot at all. So if Boeing rushed, well that came back to bite them very hard.
>And even more billions wasted on SLS too.
That's pure old space pork and a totally separate discussion beyond being another example of how decades can flow by on garbage.
- db48x 2y ago> If you're really serious about developing a new capability and place a few fully independent investment bets and some pay off handsomely while others are a bust, I wouldn't call it a waste because if you just couldn't know which would work and which wouldn't. Sure, that’s true. But my point is that those initial investments were a subsidy. They weren’t buying a product that already existed, they were paying someone to develop a product so that they could buy the product once it existed. It definitely paid off, even counting the money spent on Starliner. > That's pure old space pork and a totally separate discussion beyond being another example of how decades can flow by on garbage. Agreed. I am just saying that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. At this point we’d be better off cancelling SLS and doing our next moon mission by launching smaller craft into Earth orbit on Falcon Heavy and docking them together. Like Apollo but with several launches spread out over a week instead of a single giant rocket. We could even assemble a cycler that way.