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Why does this sounds so... Entitled? NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves... Now suddenly there is a new moon race and th

Why does this sounds so... Entitled? NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves... Now suddenly there is a new moon race and they start pointing to a public company that is not sticking to a schedule. A company that does some impressive things, and has helped them out (probably not out of the goodness of their hearts, but hey), and is doing things they could not. I would be an adult about it and respond reasonable, perhaps even ask NASA for help, publicly. I'm afraid Elon is about to give them the finger and drive around on the moon by himself, two fingers pointing at NASA head quarters. I would smile about that a bit, I admit.

philipallstar 1y ago
> probably not out of the goodness of their hearts, but hey It's a terrible idea to rely on this. Why would you want people to work this way when you can just have a regular-person financial transaction that aligns your interests?
- teekert 1y ago
  FWIW, I absolutely agree. I just wanted to stress that the helping with the Boeing situation was something that, in a way, one could be a bit grateful for. But yeah, its not necessary.
asadotzler 1y ago
Duffy wants to fold NASA into the Department of Transportation and make it a Moon transport focused organization. He cares nothing of science or discovery and if he can show that SpaceX is behind in its transport contract, that helps his argument that NASA should be in the transport business which helps his argument that NASA should be a part of the DOT.
- fooker 1y ago
  I don't understand the modern US trend of putting unqualified people in charge. It's not just the republicans though, seems like a deeper cultural issue. There has been close to zero scientists in charge of policy in the last several decades. This sort of thing is why China keeps pulling ahead. While we have this dude figuring out how NASA can be gutted further, China has ~2.5 space agencies, and without Spacex doing our heavylifting, they would have been already ahead. They expect to have something like Falcon 9 pretty soon, which implies a starlink competitor in a matter of years.
phkahler 1y ago
>> I'm afraid Elon is about to give them the finger and drive around on the moon by himself, two fingers pointing at NASA head quarters. I don't think Elon cares much about going to the moon. It would probably delay the Mars mission to devote resources to a moon mission.
- boringg 1y ago
  Unless he gets a lucrative mining contract
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
jotux 1y ago
>NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves... I keep running across this perception and I don't understand where it comes from. Overwhelmingly, like since the 1970s, NASA has not built anything per it's appropriations from congress. Their job is to 1) Define mission requirements and objectives, 2) Oversee contracts to execute those missions, 3) Test and verify elements of those systems, and very distant 4) do some in-house research and development for cutting edge technology (still mostly contracted out). ~75% of their budget is contracts to private companies to execute missions. NASA's job, as defined NASA directors over the years and by congress via appropriations, is to come up with ideas and fund private companies to execute them.
- vlovich123 1y ago
  You mean the 1970s as in Raegan when the space program stalled and became irrelevant and became mostly a way to funnel money to districts for certain congresspeople?
  - slowmovintarget 1y ago
    Reagan took office in the 80s. The 70s was Nixon, Ford, and Carter.
  - sobellian 1y ago
    The space program stalled because pouring national wealth into gigantic single-use rockets was unsustainable. They tried with Shuttle but the material science wasn't there yet (heck it might not be even now, it doesn't seem that they've really nailed down the heat shield on Starship yet).
    - jjk166 1y ago
      The issue with the shuttle wasn't the material science. It was designed around a mission profile of servicing spy satellites, which at the time had film which needed to be developed. The defense department gave NASA requirements which could only be satisfied by moving the orbiter to the side of the rocket, dramatically increasing potential damage to the thermal tiles and making crew escape basically impossible. This was all justified by the incredibly large number of flights that the shuttle would fly to service these satellites, and the money the defense department would pay for these missions. The shuttle was screwed late in production when digital camera technology allowed for spy satellites that didn't need regular servicing, eliminating most of the demand for the shuttle and rendering the infrastructure designed for it unsustainable.
dvrj101 1y ago
> NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves they handed lots of space exploration stages to private industries, companies like spaceX got decades worth of knowledge exchange and access to nasa facilities. Somehow people with no skin in the game shout the most stupid things these days.
- BHSPitMonkey 1y ago
  I think it's more fair to say that transportation from ground to orbit became commoditized to the point where the better allocation of NASA's talents became designing and building telescopes (like the JWST), Martian rovers / aircraft, Earth observation satellites, and plans for future deep space exploration missions. It's beneficial for NASA, companies, and other countries to have cost-effective access to a range of competing American launch providers (whether SpaceX, ULA, RocketLab, and perhaps BO in the next few years).
jb1991 1y ago
Which public company are you referring to? SpaceX is private.

philipallstar 1y ago

> probably not out of the goodness of their hearts, but hey It's a terrible idea to rely on this. Why would you want people to work this way when you can just have a regular-person financial transaction that aligns your interests?

teekert 1y ago
FWIW, I absolutely agree. I just wanted to stress that the helping with the Boeing situation was something that, in a way, one could be a bit grateful for. But yeah, its not necessary.

asadotzler 1y ago

Duffy wants to fold NASA into the Department of Transportation and make it a Moon transport focused organization. He cares nothing of science or discovery and if he can show that SpaceX is behind in its transport contract, that helps his argument that NASA should be in the transport business which helps his argument that NASA should be a part of the DOT.

fooker 1y ago
I don't understand the modern US trend of putting unqualified people in charge. It's not just the republicans though, seems like a deeper cultural issue. There has been close to zero scientists in charge of policy in the last several decades. This sort of thing is why China keeps pulling ahead. While we have this dude figuring out how NASA can be gutted further, China has ~2.5 space agencies, and without Spacex doing our heavylifting, they would have been already ahead. They expect to have something like Falcon 9 pretty soon, which implies a starlink competitor in a matter of years.

phkahler 1y ago

>> I'm afraid Elon is about to give them the finger and drive around on the moon by himself, two fingers pointing at NASA head quarters. I don't think Elon cares much about going to the moon. It would probably delay the Mars mission to devote resources to a moon mission.

boringg 1y ago
Unless he gets a lucrative mining contract
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

jotux 1y ago

>NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves... I keep running across this perception and I don't understand where it comes from. Overwhelmingly, like since the 1970s, NASA has not built anything per it's appropriations from congress. Their job is to 1) Define mission requirements and objectives, 2) Oversee contracts to execute those missions, 3) Test and verify elements of those systems, and very distant 4) do some in-house research and development for cutting edge technology (still mostly contracted out). ~75% of their budget is contracts to private companies to execute missions. NASA's job, as defined NASA directors over the years and by congress via appropriations, is to come up with ideas and fund private companies to execute them.

vlovich123 1y ago
You mean the 1970s as in Raegan when the space program stalled and became irrelevant and became mostly a way to funnel money to districts for certain congresspeople?
- slowmovintarget 1y ago
  Reagan took office in the 80s. The 70s was Nixon, Ford, and Carter.
- sobellian 1y ago
  The space program stalled because pouring national wealth into gigantic single-use rockets was unsustainable. They tried with Shuttle but the material science wasn't there yet (heck it might not be even now, it doesn't seem that they've really nailed down the heat shield on Starship yet).
  - jjk166 1y ago
    The issue with the shuttle wasn't the material science. It was designed around a mission profile of servicing spy satellites, which at the time had film which needed to be developed. The defense department gave NASA requirements which could only be satisfied by moving the orbiter to the side of the rocket, dramatically increasing potential damage to the thermal tiles and making crew escape basically impossible. This was all justified by the incredibly large number of flights that the shuttle would fly to service these satellites, and the money the defense department would pay for these missions. The shuttle was screwed late in production when digital camera technology allowed for spy satellites that didn't need regular servicing, eliminating most of the demand for the shuttle and rendering the infrastructure designed for it unsustainable.

dvrj101 1y ago

> NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves they handed lots of space exploration stages to private industries, companies like spaceX got decades worth of knowledge exchange and access to nasa facilities. Somehow people with no skin in the game shout the most stupid things these days.

BHSPitMonkey 1y ago
I think it's more fair to say that transportation from ground to orbit became commoditized to the point where the better allocation of NASA's talents became designing and building telescopes (like the JWST), Martian rovers / aircraft, Earth observation satellites, and plans for future deep space exploration missions. It's beneficial for NASA, companies, and other countries to have cost-effective access to a range of competing American launch providers (whether SpaceX, ULA, RocketLab, and perhaps BO in the next few years).

jb1991 1y ago

Which public company are you referring to? SpaceX is private.