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Why are people impressed with SpaceX?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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I remember an interview with a former NASA engineer that said NASA would never be able to do anything near what SpaceX (or any other private company) can do. The reason given is that SpaceX spent billions after billions on what were essentially very expensive fireworks until they finally achieved a breakthrough. A breakthrough that wasn't a guarantee. Even Musk himself had said he would have eventually closed SpaceX if they hadn't achieved something and it would have been a multi billion dollar failure. He, and everyone else really, got very lucky.
Imagine NASA asking taxpayers for another billion dollars after blowing up the last billion with no guarantee this next billion would produce anything but another explosion. How many times would the public foot that bill? Not even once. Not while people don't have healthcare and homelessness and hunger exist. The government can't justify it and that's just how it is. The only way we get space travel, with our current system, is to hope someone with a lot of money is willing to bet it on a breakthrough. It sucks but the problem isn't Musk, it's the system that makes us reliant on billionaires for nice things.
In the meantime the military burns trillions on anti terrorism missions that are guaranteed to end up creating more terrorists that will be angry at the US, it's not as if the public wasn't used to their money being wasted on things that aren't guaranteed or that are guaranteed to lead to the opposite of what's intended and SpaceX isn't a charity, in the end the public will pay for all those billions they spent on R&D.