The slap fight between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has highlighted the absurdity of keeping so much of our space program and satellite internet infrastructure in the hands of a single oligarch.
These last few years they’ve had very little successes, but the point is it should stay competitive and not be automatically handed to these doofuses. Even the USSR maintained a competitive rocketry sector.
Compared to previously SpaceX has been seeing more and more failed launches, Starlink is banned in a number of countries and there are already other low orbit internet satellite providers popping up.
You say “failed”, engineers say “ok what have we learned and what can we improve/fix from this?”. These launches are tests. Every single launch is testing every single part of the hardware and software. Tests failing isn’t a bad thing, as it helps you fix problems and make things better.
NASA hasn’t take the slightest risk since Challenger. They wouldn’t have accomplished 1/20th of the launch capability SpaceX has developed in the last 5 years.
It’s the specification process that’s the thing, nobody there would have gone out on a limb the way SpaceX has with their recovery systems. Look where they are on a shuttle replacement: the Apollo capsule with more room.
We should just fund NASA and let SpaceX and Starlink go bankrupt to competitors.
SpaceX and Starlink basically have no competition, and if they did, said competitor would also need to be heavily subsidized.
These last few years they’ve had very little successes, but the point is it should stay competitive and not be automatically handed to these doofuses. Even the USSR maintained a competitive rocketry sector.
SpaceX and starlink have had very little success the last few years? What have you been smoking?!
Compared to previously SpaceX has been seeing more and more failed launches, Starlink is banned in a number of countries and there are already other low orbit internet satellite providers popping up.
You say “failed”, engineers say “ok what have we learned and what can we improve/fix from this?”. These launches are tests. Every single launch is testing every single part of the hardware and software. Tests failing isn’t a bad thing, as it helps you fix problems and make things better.
SpaceX has loads of capable engineers. If NASA gets a massive budget increase, they need to draw from that pool of talent.
NASA hasn’t take the slightest risk since Challenger. They wouldn’t have accomplished 1/20th of the launch capability SpaceX has developed in the last 5 years.
Generally NASA doesn’t “develop” rockets per se, they commission rockets to specification.
It’s the specification process that’s the thing, nobody there would have gone out on a limb the way SpaceX has with their recovery systems. Look where they are on a shuttle replacement: the Apollo capsule with more room.