Janet VertesiWell, if today is any indication there’s one thing SpaceX can do that NASA definitely can’t: Have a massive and much-hyped spacecraft blow up spectacularly after launch and then the camera pans to everyone applauding wildly and saying, “Wow, what a great test, we learned so much!” instead of “Wow, how dangerous and irresponsible, NASA has lost its touch, we can’t trust them, maybe should give all its money to some upstart company.”
Loy@cyberlyra The contrast to SLS is staggering: it took ages to get that to launch, but worked perfect on the first try.
@loy NASA today always has to work perfectly on the first try.
And be not expensive, and sustain jobs in multiple states, and do things no one has done before.
Else people say, "There go my tax dollars at work!"
Of course, Musk's rockets are also your tax dollars at work, as NASA is one of their biggest clients.
@cyberlyra I know, I know. If yesterday SLS was launched and exploded after a much shorter development cycle, tomorrow the NASA budget would be under heavy discussion.
The general public doesn't accept it's government taking such risks. And I wonder in which cases that wouldn't make sense, besides probably NASA?
Not my tax dollars btw, EU citizen here :-)
Ingenuity and Pathfinder were technology demonstrations. They are skunkwork projects within a NASA center that trade low cost for high risk and low complexity (Remember Faster, Better, Cheaper? Pick two...) They didn't have to work, they were like a bonus if they did. And they did. But prior missions that cut corners didn't, so it's not a guarantee.
I don't know where else US gov't taking significant risks is acceptable.
@cyberlyra NASA is full of such examples I suppose. The Ingenuity helicopter too maybe, although that was much lower cost and also recently did 10x it's planned number of flights.
But outside NASA, any other places where 'the government taking risk' is accepted by the general public?