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0 pointschrisco25510y ago0 comments

NASA's achievements have been impressive, to be sure. I don't want to discount that. However, it has accumulated some inefficiencies and some stagnation over the decades.

What NASA has achieved, they've done so with over $1 trillion in inflation-adjusted capital funds over the decades, that have been allocated to them.

What is debatable is whether or not they've made or always made efficient use of the capital they've been allocated.

Space X has innovated on a number of fronts with less than 1500 employees and only a fraction of the capital that NASA has been allocated. For one, the Space Shuttle program was costing the U.S. $450 million+ per launch. A Falcon 9 launch costs an average of $57 million. There is proof that he can allocate capital better than the government.

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lmm10y ago· 1 in thread

> Space X has innovated on a number of fronts with less than 1500 employees and only a fraction of the capital that NASA has been allocated. For one, the Space Shuttle program was costing the U.S. $450 million+ per launch. A Falcon 9 launch costs an average of $57 million. There is proof that he can allocate capital better than the government.

No it's not. The requirements on the two systems were not remotely the same, and it's not surprising that a system built 30+ years later with the lessons of the previous system in mind would be more efficient.

chrisco255OP10y ago

NASA is still around, you know. They could jump in at any time and make it happen, rather than pay some contractor cost-plus for it...but they don't. The red tape they have to deal with to get anything done is just too great.

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