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0 pointsfragmede4y ago0 comments

SPARC (as proposed this year, by CFS, which was founded in 2018) also has the benefit of 3 decades worth of advancement in materials science, computers, and other technologies over ITER, which was started sometime in the 1980's. Sometimes being first to market takes a long time and is very expensive because you first have to invent all of the components yourself.

SpaceX's advancement is impressive, but if NASA had never happened, I doubt SpaceX would even exist today.

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maccam944y ago

SpaceX's main innovation was that they decided to build a rocket that wasn't optimized for performance or reliability, but cost. They were willing to bear huge development risks to create a new price category and capture latent demand for cheaper launches.

zarzavat4y ago

I'd say what SpaceX optimises for most is iteration time. They have benefited hugely from an iterative development pattern contrasted to the waterfall pattern of NASA et al. Time is your biggest cost.

tcmart144y ago

I'd say yes and no. You most definitely have a point here as I agree that their model, or view, is different than NASA. However, if NASA had not happened, would even conceiving of a different model or target had happened? Not to mention just initial research into rocketry. It maybe could have happened without NASA, but probably with a severely higher initial investment.

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