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A leaderless NASA faces its biggest-ever cuts
- 1970-01-01 1y agoAnd if Elon pulls SpaceX out of NASA?
- tocs3 1y agoI think Elon has more to lose than the folks holding the purse strings for NASA. Defense contracts might make some pause for a little while but congress has a long history of supporting more traditional defense contractors and they could spend some money on lobbying (or dinner at Mar a Lago).
- credit_guy 1y agoYeah... no. If the Golden Dome hopes to have a chance to get built (on budget), SpaceX needs to get involved.
- tocs3 1y agoSpaceX did OK with the Dragon capsule some years ago. I will happily give them credit budget wise and performance (and timing for something like that is hard). The Golden Dome project is a different animal all together. This is a cynical take, but Golden Dome is another giant DoD project. It will not keep to any sort of budget and the timeline is fantasy. Something might get produced but congress will have no trouble awarding launch contracts to who ever spends the most on lobbying.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> If the Golden Dome hopes to have a chance to get built (on budget) Why do you think anyone in D.C. cares about those endpoints?
- watwut 1y agoHe wants them money. The contracts for SpaceX is his primary gain from his political engagement. He needs those contracts and got them. If he looses them, it will be as a revenge from Trump rather then voluntary something.
- mft_ 1y agoTo offer a little factual background: * The fact that SpaceX is currently the only US company with an available and reliable capacity to fly astronauts to/from the ISS is the main reason for many of the contracts, and they had this before and irrespective of Musk's political engagement. * For other launch activities unrelated to the ISS, SpaceX offers the most cost-effective service, so again it's not unreasonable that they would win business irrespective. * Most of SpaceX's active contracts with NASA predate Trump's second term.
- dkjaudyeqooe 1y agoMusk tried to have a close associate installed as the head of NASA. Even if those facts are true there are many, many benefits Musk stood to get. So although the GP comment is a bit silly it's still in the ballpark.
- tayo42 1y agoHow was the US getting to the iss before SpaceX. Seems to concerning to have all of the capabilities tied up with one irrational guy and his toy company
- KerrAvon 1y agoIIRC paying the Russians.
- dboreham 1y agoRussian rockets.
- mft_ 1y agoIt’s that: a) NASA didn’t/doesn’t have the capacity b) The Russians did have the capacity but it was expensive and also painful to American egos to utilise this repeatedly, not to mention a risk due to geopolitical uncertainty. c) NASA therefore funded Boeing and SpaceX to develop ‘home grown’ capability. (Note: SpaceX received less than Boeing for this development.) d) Boeing’s space division lost up a big lead (over SpaceX) through poor development and execution, echoes of which continue to this day with the issues seen with Starliner leading to the two astronauts being effectively ‘stranded’ for a period of e) SpaceX did a good job of developing Dragon and getting Falcon 9 rated for human flight. Since then, their reliability, low cost, and high launch cadence, coupled with Boeing’s missteps, has led to multiple contracts and successful launches. —- It’s also worth mentioning that SoaceX was started when Musk wasn’t so crazy (remember, once upon a time, he was the woke darling of the progressive center-left) and also that a lot of its success and stability may be thanks to its COO, Gwynne Shotwell. Calling it Musk’s “toy company” ignores the huge advances it has made, thanks to the fantastic people that work there, and also (gulp) Musk himself.
- whatever1 1y agoWhat if the gov takes over SpaceX overnight?
- to11mtm 1y agoYou'd have bigger questions coming up based on the general 'how did it get to this' as well as any other companies as well as the populace being very concerned about such behavior.
- forgetfreeman 1y agoI think you might be surprised to find out how much of the populace would literally applaud such behavior.
- lantry 1y agoagreed. the right will believe whatever trump tells them, and the left would be happy to see Elon knocked down a peg.
- BryanLegend 1y agoWe ain't stupid
- kasperni 1y agoUntil they saw the stock market...
- forgetfreeman 1y agoGiven the market's enthusiasm for speculating on TSLA during the recent controversy and protests on two continents I see no evidence to suggest speculators would take a day off just because Musk got his shit ruined.
- brookst 1y ago[flagged]
- RIMR 1y agoSpaceX would go under, that's basically all of their income...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bpodgursky 1y agoNASA is about $1B of SpaceX's ~$15B revenue. SpaceX does a LOT of commercial launch. And Starlink is growing fast.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoI’m assuming if Trump is cancelling SpaceX’s NASA contracts he’s also yanking launch and possibly even radio authorisation. In a strange way, the middle path is targeting Elon personally. Not his companies.
- bpodgursky 1y agoI mean if Trump really wants to lose more court cases he's welcome to try, but I doubt it would get that far. The DoD knows if SpaceX can't launch, they straight up will never get their assets into orbit. The ULA backlog is like a decade.
- KerrAvon 1y agoHe’s winning the important ones. The Supreme Court keeps giving him the green light to wipe his ass with the constitution.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> He’s winning the important ones Citation? I’ve mostly been seeing win procedural motions.
- smegger001 1y ago
- dev1ycan 1y agoI'll be honest, SpaceX is his as long as he respects the country he is at, and what he was allowed to do, he "joked" about decommisioning the dragon but I don't think a single person in government will allow him to sabotage the ISS like that. Actual room for criminal investigation and possibly expropiation. If he was in Canada or South Africa he wouldn't have access to the technical knowledge or talent that he has in the US, due to law, and said law exists to protect critical industries in America, it goes both ways, you are also not allowed as an individual to sabotage the nation.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> criminal investigation and possibly expropiation Criminal investigation into lying on clearance forms about drug use effectively sidelines him SpaceX’s chain of command without stealing his or anyone else’s shareholdings. That said, it would be an authoritarian shot across the bow for Silicon Valley from this White House.
- georgemcbay 1y agoPretty sure his relatively quick walk back on that "joke" was due to the realization that if it was left open as a credible threat it is very likely the government would have just seized control of SpaceX immediately. There's not really any need to charge him with anything to do that when he is making active threats to weaken national security, though its possible they might have separately gone after him. And if the government did take that action they would have had incredibly high popular support for doing so among virtually everyone on both sides.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> if they did, they would have had incredibly high popular support for doing so among virtually everyone on both sides What? Where? If you mean expropriation, no, that has never been popular here, it’s part of why we have a massive economy.
- georgemcbay 1y ago
- tagami 1y agoIt may take a few years but there's Blue Origin's New Glenn (i.e. https://spacenews.com/nasas-escapade-could-launch-on-second-new-glenn/ https://spacenews.com/nasas-escapade-could-launch-on-second-...)
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoIf they maintain their development speed I don’t have much hope. They got started before SpaceX and still haven’t reached orbit.
- rockemsockem 1y agoI generally agree with this sentiment, but they did reach orbit with their sole launch of New Glenn! An admirable thing, even if it took like a quarter of a century.....
- fooblaster 1y agoThey reached orbit with new glenn in January. This just isn't true.
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoTotally forgot about that. When is their next launch?
- kulahan 1y agoDoes anyone have a mirror?
- banana_giraffe 1y agohttps://archive.is/JGPw9 https://archive.is/JGPw9
- jdkee 1y agoDoes NASA have heavy lift capability today? Why not?
- foobarbecue 1y agoYes, SLS.
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoAt an insane cost and low launch frequency
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]