XPost: alt.astronomy

from a Quora

Andrew Forrest
Chief Engineer at Solstad Offshore (2005–present)1y

Why were Elon Musk and SpaceX able to develop boosters that returned
safely to Earth for re-use when NASA said it was impossible?

Originally Answered: Why was Elon Musk and SpaceX able to develop
boosters that returned safely to Earth for re-use when NASA said it was impossible?
Why was Elon Musk and SpaceX able to develop boosters that returned
safely to Earth for re-use when NASA said it was impossible?

NASA never said that landing rockets was impossible, after all they did
spend a considerable amount of effort trying to develop the McDonnell
Douglas DC-X, which was regularly landing back on Earth back in the
early 1990s.

The idea was abandoned however since it was envisioned as a SSTO (single
stage to orbit), and they simply couldn’t get around the rocket
equation. Musk and SpaceX simply said “why don’t we keep the two stage concept that we know works, but work on recovering the biggest and most expensive part?”.

SpaceX has one big advantage over NASA however, and that’s the fact that SpaceX is a privately owned company whose owner is obsessed with the
goal of getting to Mars. SpaceX therefore has no conflicting demands
from congress, and doesn’t have to play politics in order to get
projects approved.

It’s amazing what can be achieved when you have an obsessive billionaire
in charge who attacks problems with tenacity and resolve.

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Charlie Stout
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Charlie Stout
· Wed
Dead on. The change of administrations every 4 or 8 years, along with
that administration's vision, makes it impossible for NASA to have the
same success as a company that has the same leader and stable vision
that comes with it.

NASA is amazing. With the right circumstances, they can accomplish
anything our minds can dream up. Unfortunately, our government is just
too divided from term to term, to show this ability.

In the meantime, private, stable companies, will fill the gap.

Bob Dupes
· Wed
Space X also had the advantage of the years of research and
trial-and-error of NASA. Everything is a whole lot easier when you start
some 60 years down the the road instead of square one.

Alain Dao
· Thu
If that’s the case then please explain why SLS costs so much and is so delayed even though it is using proven technologies from the Space
Shuttle program? SLS is a program that benefits more from NASA immediate
past than what SpaceX did. They didn’t have to develop a new engine,
they are using existing RS-25 left over from the Space Shuttle program.
The solid rocket boosters are derivatives of the solid rocket boosters
used by the Space Shuttle. All of this and they still couldn’t get it to launch this year.

Yes, SpaceX was able to use the technology developed by NASA to help it
develop it’s rockets. The initial funding SpaceX received for delivering cargo to the ISS saved SpaceX from bankruptcy. It’s really easy to say
that SpaceX wouldn’t be where it is today without NASA. Why isn’t this critique applied to Boeing or Lockheed Martin or ULA? They had the same
access to NASA for all these years. Why is it that Boeing was given more
money than SpaceX to deliver astronauts to the ISS and still hasn’t
delivered a single astronaut on their Starliner capsule?

It’s easy to dismiss the achievements of SpaceX by saying that they were standing on the shoulders of those that came before them. Given the
resources of their competitors my question is why did it have to wait
for SpaceX to make what SpaceX has done and is doing seem so easy.


Jim Kolter
· Thu
We’ll said Alain! Imagine what a dozen more Elon Musks could do!
EVERYONE doing anything great is standing on the shoulders of their predecessors, to NOT do so would be foolish. Einstein stood on Newton’s shoulders too.

Bob Dupes
· Thu
Simple logic should tell you that Space X benefited from the mistakes
and errors of NASA by not having to experiment and fail. Every NASA
success was the result of countless or unknown failures. Space X did not
have to go through the almost 70 year learning curve.

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XPost: alt.astronomy

a425couple wrote:

SpaceX has one big advantage over NASA however, and that�s the fact that >SpaceX is a privately owned company whose owner is obsessed with the
goal of getting to Mars.

In fact, NASA's big disadvantage is that its employees' main goal is to protect their jobs, not to achieve results, and certainly NOT to achieve cost reduction.

Whether Elon really dreams about Mars like critics love to point out, or whether
he is just realistic about capturing the Starlink and launch market, as he has so nicely achieved, is pure editorializing.

On one side one focused businessman, on the other side many job-protecting civil
servants overseen by politicians. 'nuf said


PS: The etymology of "Politics":
from the greek prefix Poly, ie many, and from Ticks, ie blood-sucking parasites.

(c) someone I forgot, long ago. But boy, was he right...

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XPost: alt.astronomy

On 11/8/22 05:42, DAN wrote:

a425couple wrote:

SpaceX has one big advantage over NASA however, and that’s the fact that >> SpaceX is a privately owned company whose owner is obsessed with the
goal of getting to Mars.

In fact, NASA's big disadvantage is that its employees' main goal is to protect
their jobs, not to achieve results, and certainly NOT to achieve cost reduction.

Whether Elon really dreams about Mars like critics love to point out, or whether
he is just realistic about capturing the Starlink and launch market, as he has
so nicely achieved, is pure editorializing.

On one side one focused businessman, on the other side many job-protecting civil
servants overseen by politicians. 'nuf said

Good explanation!

PS: The etymology of "Politics":
from the greek prefix Poly, ie many, and from Ticks, ie blood-sucking parasites.

(c) someone I forgot, long ago. But boy, was he right...

Another good one.

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