But haven't people wanted NASA to be more streamlined, and efficient? Not sure if that is reducing staffing, or changing its mission. SpaceX making such leaps and bounds over NASA had to be a shot across the bow.
Of course this is assuming they actually want these agencies to be more efficient and not just die, which is a big assumption.
I mean if you were tasked with "government efficiency" don't you think the lowest hanging fruit would be the Pentagon budget? But, sure, go after air traffic control instead.
SpaceX, which has been awarded tens of billions in government contracts from NASA, is making leaps and bounds over NASA? I think in 2022 almost 50% of SpaceX revenue was NASA contracts. All those leaps and bounds over NASA are literally NASA funded.
In some ways, this isn't wrong. It's easier to get a private company to do that than to get NASA to do it, because there's not some congresscritter from Alabama or wherever constantly trying to direct aspects of the project into their state, or to make the project serve their patrons' interests.
Of course, you could also say that up until recently, Elon himself was just as much of a patron, but still.
I still don't understand this. NASA funded the development of dragon and a few other companies through their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS 1 and 2) contracts. It's right in the name, Commercial Resupply. NASA isn't building anything in these contracts, just defining requirements and overseeing execution and spending.
>In some ways, this isn't wrong. It's easier to get a private company to do that than to get NASA to do it
But this is wrong. NASA came up with requirements and awarded money to multiple companies (which is how high-risk contacting works -- hedging development by funding multiple companies), one of the companies they funded has been pretty successful, some of them unsuccessful, some are still in development.
The whole argument and perception that NASA and Spacex are somehow competitors just makes no sense to me. It's like saying something like, "The US Navy needed a new frigate and funded the development of it from HII and NASSCO. HII made an amazing new frigate, and NASSCO failed. OMG HII is so amazing why don't we just pay them to be the US Navy?"
Exactly. They're not building anything. When NASA builds something you get a bunch of agencies also trying to hitch on. Requirements get diluted and less focused. Senator Hypertension from Alabama or Louisiana or wherever won't let the funding get through committee until they build the facility for testing it in a swamp.
The thing about Senator Hypertension, though, is that he completely lacks a sense of irony, and thus, also thinks government is inherently wasteful and that some private business can do anything government can do, better, no matter what the task is. So he's also okay with letting some well-capitalized company owned by a billionaire - I mean, a scrappy underdog of a company built with good-ol' American know-how - get a contract to do it instead of NASA.
And in doing that, he's willing to forego his swamp facility.
https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-2026-budget-proposal...
NASA's mission statement is "explore the unknown in air and space, innovate for the benefit of humanity, and inspire the world through discovery".
SpaceX is a p̶u̶b̶l̶i̶c̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶d̶e̶d̶ privately held company whose mission is to increase shareholder value.
The mission is mars and the money making endeavors (starlink) are to bring in the cash to do that.
It's hard to believe that by now Musk still hasn't realized what a ridiculous idea this is.
That realization could explain his weird pivot into e.g. buying Twitter and far-right politics. A midlife crisis triggered by discovering that his childhood dream was just a fantasy.
Maybe one day Elon Musk will understand space as well as you do.
I’d note SpaceX is by far the most successful but by far not the only player in that space.
The brain drain and funding attack is on non military goals of NASA as well as on college and specifically graduate level people in the United States because they don’t ideologically align to the president. It’s a cultural revolution America style.
repeated explosions?
The thing that's exploding is Starship, which is still under development. Their production vehicles are among the most reliable in history. Falcon has a 99% mission success rate a 95% landing success rate and Falcon Heavy has a 100% mission success rate.
Which people?
What? These two do two separate things, do you mean ULA?