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Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

From what I hear the original "startup" NASA from the 60s was a no deadweight organization that efficiently cranked out world class space flight.

That it since followed the path of every other monopoly bureaucracy was of course unavoidable.

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> ...it since followed the path of every other monopoly bureaucracy...

This is not really true, but you are taking it as axiomatic.

It's a heck of a lot more true than false. Of coarse if you use a roller you need to cut in with a fine brush.

To better appreciate what NASA does, I think it helps to look at its achievements in a different way. Instead of (just) marveling at the big rockets or the rovers on other planets, consider the amount of paperwork that was needed to do these things. Someone had to get approval to move a large amount of high explosive across several state lines, obtain permission to detonate a large amount of this explosive material in a wildlife refuge, coordinate with foreign military agencies to ensure that "yeah that thing you see on your radar going on ballistic trajectory toward your homeland TOTALLY isn't WW3", and mate with a space station partially constructed by a foreign power with which you have sanctions that limit your ability to exchange technical information.

Even though SpaceX has to do some of this, they get to reuse quite a bit of NASA paperwork.

Interestingly the Indian Space Research Organisation seems not to have followed this path.

A professor of mine who used to work at ISRO says that the place is choke full of bureaucracy.

Could tweet Trump and ask him to remove the deadweight.

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