• masquenox@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        22
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        There is absolutely nothing these over-hyped “space” companies can do that the US couldn’t do far better and far cheaper through NASA itself - you know, just like they did when they sent astronauts to the moon?.

        • pan_troglodytes@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          that’s a fair point but it was also politically necessary to spend half a billion or more per launch to “show the ruskies who the real superpower was” - and a lot of the tech was still being developed. now, 50 years on, the tech is much more established, materials science has matured, and it’s cheaper for a non-government organization to perform the launches.

          getting nasa involved is just going to involve gratuitous spending and pork barrel politics - look towards the SLS program. vastly over budget with not much to show for it. rounding down, you could buy every single launch SpaceX has made this year and still have a few billion $$$ in spare change left over for the cost of SLS… and it’s flown, what? once?

          • Luft@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Larger ship is in development, might be able to handle a crewed mission.

            Also the question was about cadence xP