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Comment by mattrp | Hacker News Reader

Not to mention SLS which is just nonsense at this point. As well as the numerous delays on the demo missions to the ISS. This feels to me like an ultimatum to NASA... move the ball forward or get out of the game. I get the sense there is real fear we could lose the idea of ‘space’ if we don’t start showing some progress. As it stands now there isn’t a platform for the moon and there’s not going to be a platform by 2024 unless some really remarkable things start to happen.. I wouldn’t be surprised if Spacex does it but if it does I can’t imagine NASA will have anything other than token participation. Perhaps that is really for the best...

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SpaceX might be able to throw something on the moon by 2024. But for a manned mission...

Just look at Crew Dragon. SpaceX started development in 2014, and the first manned flight is planned for april 2020. 6 years, and it not designed from scratch.

SpaceX likes to set unrealistic expectations. And while they get the job done (SLS should take note...), they are not doing magic. This is not the 50s anymore, they have to work within a budget, and with much more consideration given to safety.

I think Blue Origin will explode into the space race. Bezos is a smart fellow and his number one passion is space. I think competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin is happening right now and is fierce. I'm sure Musk knows what Bezos is up to and that's why he's driving the development of StartShip so hard (and StarLink)

This year is going to be interesting.

People have been saying that for years.

Blue Origin is nowhere close to SpaceX. They are a fun R&D project silently farming out refined small aerospace tech improvements to various space agencies.

They haven't even achieved a single orbital launch to date. SpaceX achieved orbit 12 years ago.

I’ve often wondered why BO hasn’t achieved orbit despite it being public knowledge that Bezos spends a billion / year on it. Other than space being hard, why do think that is?

NASA is going to end up being the label on the shipping crate. They don't have a funding model sufficiently detached from political actors trying to sell the sizzle and uninterested in somebody else's steak.

NASA builds, deploys, and operates the largest and most successful space exploration network in history and will hold that distinction for the forseeable future. The lunar campaign seems designed to force commercial partners to step up and become the UPS and Uber service for future NASA instruments and missions. You seem to be focused soley on SLS as a failure case and forget that when it comes to huge campaigns with fast turn arounds and zero room for error they dont have the funding model period.

I’m reading the reddit thread below and I’m inclined to say maybe as a permitting organization, there’s not just a place but a critical need for an org like NASA:

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/f2a1yx/eric_berger_...

But at the same time, how can it accomplish its mission without going on boondoggles like SLS? I just saw an article yesterday about a project they funded for Lockheed Martin for them to explore an SST that doesn’t create loud shockwaves... I guess you could say this falls under the Aeronautics mandate but really? Is this an area of research that needs government funding? Or can they say anything that furthers the understanding of safe flight and NASA’s regulatory mission of private space flight, then its justifiable?

They have consistently been successful at what you could call JFK-less varieties of exploration, where nobody gets to be the JFK and make a big speech about Mars human landings and decree a project that will get their name in the history books.

Every JFK-project they have been saddled with, after the original, fizzled. This is because each incoming administration (without regard to party) wants to be the JFK. They don't want to deliver what the previous man hyped. Tear it up, back to the drawing board.

Where it's an unassuming team of scientists plugging away making lander robots or what have you, they can do that.

They seem competent to me at preventing disastrous mishaps and making discoveries past Moon/Mars colonizations

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