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Comment by leesec | Hacker News Reader

NASA has been incredibly wasteful for a long time. You give it more money then suddenly the timelines become longer. Private companies like SpaceX will save us

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>> Private companies like SpaceX will save us

Well, all the previous private companies that built spacecraft for decades didn't manage to save us. (Space Shuttle = Rockwell, Apollo capsule = North American, Saturn V = Boeing, Mercury Capsule = McDonnell Douglas.) The fact that a device was designed/built/operated by a company with shareholders doesn't make it magically more efficient. What matters is how the entire operation is managed, something more tied to the identity of the customer than that of the contractor.

> Well, all the previous private companies that built spacecraft for decades didn't manage to save us.

That is more of a cost-plus contract vs fixed-price contract thing.

operational management is influenced by the pressure it takes to survive. Nasa doesnt need to make money to survive. SpaceX does. but agreed theres more too it than that

SpaceX?!?! The company promising to take us to the moon this year in a rocket that has yet to experience space let alone refuel in orbit? The company that has claimed this same rocket would be doing human test flights in 2020 and carrying cargo to Mars in 2022?

There's a lot to be impressed by from SpaceX, but accurate forecasting is about the last thing on my list...

Private companies will never save us. They exist only to extract wealth. SpaceX is no exception, surviving off of taxpayer funds.

This is pretty shortsighted.

Private money is perfect to make the same cheaper. Then consultants bring the knowledge to other companies. 20-50 years and everything is a commodity.

After some time in kind of free markets the common people win.

I think with corporations becoming bigger and bigger the common people will win less. Markets only work with meaningful competition.

> After some time in kind of free markets the common people win

Any time now!

It's a very elegant idea, but maybe not the most empirically robust.

SpaceX already is cheaper than NASA

Cheaper how? NASA doesn’t fly their own rockets or spaceships, so there’s no comparison.

Cheaper compared to what NASA used to spend (in R&D and/or launch costs) to put one of their astronauts or 1 kg of mass into orbit.

Not sure, are you comparing the costs of technology 50 years ago with the costs of today's technology? That's not a very valid comparison, to say the least. Not only technology as a whole evolved a lot to give you waaay more bang for the buck, but also everything done today is built on the shoulders of the giant investments made at the start of the space age. So please, let's not bring unfounded arguments for the sake of ideology.

Not 50 years ago. See SLS for example. NASA is paying $146m PER engine (and the rocket has four, and fuel tanks, avionics , an upper stage, fairings, two solid rocket boosters ... ). An entire Falcon Heavy launch is <$100 million.

Sort of, except not always. Compare to medical insurance in the US. Medical care in the US is both one of the most expensive and most privatised in the world.

You have an insane view of the world and SpaceX will be wildly profitable

No private company has saved me yet.

We've all been waiting. For more than 100 years. Private companies will save us... like we'll have Linux on the Desktop.

Any year, now.

Lol. Life is so much better than it was 100 years ago I don't even know what you're talking about.

Of course it is, we have things like Social Security. Totally 100% attributable to companies.

Social Security doesn't even make the top 100 of why it's better than a 100 years ago.

  “When I cite a schedule, it’s actually a schedule I think is true,” Musk said in a response to a question at Code Conference. “It’s not some fake schedule I don’t think is true. I may be delusional. That is entirely possible, and maybe it’s happened from time to time, but it’s never some knowingly fake deadline ever."

Which sounds convincing until you realize the cargo missions are already supposed to be delivered.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/06/02/elon-musk-hopes-spacex...

And it's fun to make fun of how poorly the space industry holds on to their timelines but really I would much rather have the launch go well and deliver the most output possible, private or public. Mars transfer windows come about every 2 years, it's not a tragedy to miss one or two of it means we get to maximize the payload and make sure we have triple checked everything that needs to be checked.

Where's Helios when you need it ? ;)

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