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NASA (mander.xyz)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Musk-ovites that want to take NASA's budget and out it in Elon Musk's pocket.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Should all of NASA's budget go to SpaceX? Obviously not. But should they outsource their rocket development and launches to SpaceX, at least until the next competitive bid? Without question.

The Falcon 9 has already revolutionized earth observation and science projects with how cheap it has become to get science satellites into orbit, and Starship is an even crazier reduction in cost and expansion of capabilities. It will be able to lift 100 to 150 tons for $30M per launch, and will be able to launch 30+ times a year. SLS, NASA's traditionally designed and built rocket, will be able to lift 95 tons to orbit for $2200M per launch, and can only ever launch twice per year.

Do you know how crazy of a difference that is for NASA's science programs? For their exact same budget, they can either launch 100 tons of experiments once per year, or they can launch 100 tons of experiments every 5 days.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Starship is coming in a lot cheaper than SLS and SlS had a lot of legacy projects already paid for.

The fact of the matter is the real brainwashed people here are the ones that think Elon Musks Spacex isn't a revolutionary company. People are talking about rocketry like they are experts but don't know anything about it.

Giving up on Shuttle and switching to Falcon 9 instead of developing something new was the best use of money Nasa could have done.

Just yea keep circle jerking how Musk is the worst person in every possible way, at least you're cool!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Cheaper isn't always better. NASA programs like LM's SLS don't get to fail on live TV or they lose their budget, so they're over engineered and built slowly which leads to higher costs. But SLS also hasn't failed on any launch, unlike SpaceX programs.

Don't get me wrong, I want all space projects to succeed. But it's disingenuous to say people can't be critical of SpaceX because of "being brainwashed". They have a somewhat reckless deployment method for the space industry with dubious reliability.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Cheaper isn't always better no.

Which is why it is so impressive that the Falcon 9 is cheaper than the competition and more reliable.

SLS is still in early days so it's hard to compare as it lacks numbers of reusability. But any rocket that has flown a lot whether it be the shuttle or even the mighty Soyuz. Falcon 9 is the most reliable rocket in the world and the cheapest.

If NASA can't build rockets as cheap or as reliable as space X then I think the argument is that the SLS is a waste of money.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

SpaceX is a truly revolutionary company, and people often do not give them remotely the credit they deserve for how revolutionary they are because they're blinded by they're hatred of Musk.

But Musk is also a huge piece of shit. Both of those things can be true.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This used to be the case, but now the tables have turned. There was a time when SpaceX launches were streamed in 4k and NASA launches were only 720p. Now NASA streams launches in 4k and SpaceX streams moved to Xitter.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

Which only allows 1080p streams. That means the highest pixel quality streams of SpaceX launches are from third parties like everyday astronaut.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

This is the correct answer.