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Specifically NASA is an exploration and science mission while SpaceX is a lift and transit provider for organizations like NASA. Historically NASA did their own
by fnordpiglet 1y ago
Specifically NASA is an exploration and science mission while SpaceX is a lift and transit provider for organizations like NASA. Historically NASA did their own lift and transit because no one else could and they seeded and researched the capabilities that SpaceX and other private ventures do today. This is a fine arrangement because commoditizing delta V is not exploration and science, it’s the means to it.
I’d note SpaceX is by far the most successful but by far not the only player in that space.
The brain drain and funding attack is on non military goals of NASA as well as on college and specifically graduate level people in the United States because they don’t ideologically align to the president. It’s a cultural revolution America style.
- somenameforme 1y agoSpaceX's entire mission is to get people to Mars en masse. They revolutionized spaceflight precisely as a part of that mission, not as an ends in and of itself. For instance the Polaris Dawn mission [1] sent humans further into space than we've been since the Apollo Program, intentionally traversed the Van Allen radiation belt, and carried out the first commercial spacewalk, executed experiments and so forth. And all of this was carried out by SpaceX. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_Dawn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_Dawn
- fnordpiglet 1y agoThat’s Elon Musks goal, but it’s not what they do. They lift and transport. Even the goal of lifting and transporting to mars is lift and transport. You could argue it’s all means to and end, but they’ve not done the end and they have only ever done the means and will continue to do so - making it a lift and transport company :-)