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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

> Then again, the SLS program does fund the private space industry. While it's easy to dismiss it as a mere "jobs program", it did / does provide a bed for the next generation of engineers to learn, gain knowledge, become experts and so on. It also provided a bed for contractors and subcontractors to grow their businesses. Just like the Apollo program did.

This is completely backwards. It traps highly-skilled, highly-demanded engineers in dead-end jobs that do absolutely nothing to advance the state of the art.

Same with the contractors. SpaceX doesn't use OldSpace subcontractors for very good reasons. They're too slow and too expensive. They famously use industrial grade components rather than aerospace grade components. You can blame the loss of CRS-7 on this practice. OTOH Falcon9 has a perfect record since CRS-7, the highest number of consecutive successes of any rocket ever.

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Don't forget that the knowledge unlocked in the private space industry is locked and owned by these corporations.

While government funded programs can be re-used for generations to come and are more than often public domain.

SLS is therefroe worst of both worlds. The knowledge gained by it is locked in Boeing, Lockheed Martin et al.

I'd argue that progress for progress' sake is a meaningless goal. Especially when "advance the state of the art" or "industrial grade components" aren't argued as concrete tangible value.

When it comes the latter part, defining that value is the essence of the debate. No matter how advanced the technology is, it's just a tool that serves a purpose. Once a business establishes a market dominance, what incentives remain to keep advancing that tech? What guarantees could anyone offer that SpaceX will stay on the "cutting edge" once that point is reached? And how will that impact NASA's ability to make operational choices regarding it's launch capabilities and it's larger mission to foster human exploration of space starting on Earth itself?

Finally, we're not discussing CRS-7 or Falcon 9. This is about SLS and it's Starship counterpart and which developed within their shared, particular timeline.

That's just shifting the goal posts.

NASA Administrator Bolden is quoted to have said:

“Let’s be very honest,” Bolden said in an interview. “We don’t have a commercially available heavy-lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.”

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/nasa/adrift/2/

Bolden was sharing his perspective on available technologies here. He wasn't discussing the economics of human deep space-flight and how those tie in with with NASA's mission as a public entity.

Sure, I'm astounded by SpaceX's technical prowess and aptitude to reduce the price of human spaceflight by magnitudes. There's no denying that.

I'm skeptical about their business model and the potential risks and second-order effects involved in handing a single party the keys of a multi-billion dollar, nation-state sized program to establish a human / U.S. presence on the moon / space. Because that's essentially what many proponents of commercial space flight are implying by directly pointing to Starship as the alternatives that (seemingly already) outclasses SLS.

Relativity and Blue Origin both have fully reusable vehicles in the pipeline. Rocket Lab has an upcoming design that only reuses the first stage but makes the throwaway second stage exceedingly cheap.

SpaceX isn't, and will never be, the only game in town.

Unlike the ULA monopoly we had for a good decade.

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