NASA, with its limited budget and constant micromanagement by politicians, doesn't want to be - and can't be - in the business of trucking things to orbit. That's why they're trying to outsource it as much as possible.
Also, NASA can't do any of this, which is why the US government is giving funds to SpaceX. Plus what about the real dependency of the NASA on political agenda and budget votes?
Elon Musk is very good at designing companies built on government handouts. ;) Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that.
We are past the "pioneer" stage of space launches: We've done it lots of times. The exciting part is now making space launches cheaper, regular, and more capable. SpaceX is not the only company working on doing those things.
SpaceX absolutely does not depend on NASA for funding. The majority of SpaceX missions are not for the government. The majority of their developments and research are not directly funded by NASA.
> Congress can absolutely decide to fund SpaceX less
They can hurt them by telling NASA and DoD to not use SpaceX even if they are the cheapest. But that would absolutely not kill SpaceX in any way.
It would also massively hurt the government since it would cost them billions.
> or charge SpaceX more for use of government facilities
Unless they break their contract that were already negotiated for the long term, no they can't. But that's a stupid argument, of course the US government can destroy any company in the world if they really want to.
> Elon Musk is very good at designing companies built on government handouts. ;) Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that.
Not really. First of all, in the case of SpaceX they were not handouts, but rather competitively bid contracts that SpaceX can execute cheaper then anybody else. In fact SpaceX had to sue the government multiple times to even be allowed to bid for some of the contracts.
Kistler for example was not able to execute and NASA cut their funding and they went down.
These actions actually saved the government a shit-ton of money, rather then the government giving handouts to SpaceX.
The same goes for Tesla, its mostly successful because it a good product. The tax cuts they get are nice, but again, any other company has access to the same tax-cuts as well.
> We are past the "pioneer" stage of space launches
The BFR is absolutely a pineer project.Pretty much nothing like it has ever been done. Not the engines. Not the structure. Not the fuel. Not the orbital refueling. Not the full reusability.
And of course then landing it on Mars and hopefully flying it back, that's absolutely a pioneer project.
Which, for what it's worth, SpaceX still hasn't actually delivered a result on, since they decided not to make the Dragon a crewed spacecraft after all.
As others have noted, you really don't know what you're talking about.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/04/spacex-progress-comm...
First of all, the argument that SpaceX would not exist without that contract is 100% wrong. When it was awarded they already had a successful comercial buissness with many people having order launches.
Second, you seem to be under the delusion that SpaceX was given this money. That is false, the money is conditional on reaching milestones and is only paid out if NASA is sadified. If NASA is not sadified the company has to pay for the delays out of their profit margin, unlike JWST for example. SpaceX has not jet recived the waste majority of that money.
Third, the 3 billion is by FAR the cheapest offer NASA had. You can see in your own link that SpaceX gets 2.6 billion while Boeing gets 4.2 billon for the operational phase. The DreamCheaser was around 3.6.
So what do you want? Do you want NASA to build everything themselfs? NASA itself admits that they could not develop something nearly as cheap. Their own evaluations have ahown this over and over again.
Are you just against spaceflight in general? Do you think the government should not be invovlved?
The document you yourself provided showes that SpaceX got the contract because they convinced NASA in a highly technical highy comptetive.
So whats your issue? Why this irrational hate?
In either case you should stop going into technical forums and write strongly worded comments like:
> Uh, most of SpaceX wouldn't exist without the $3.144 billion SpaceX was given under the Commercial Crew Program
Secondly
> Why the irrational fanboyism?
How is it irrational? I'm a 'fanboy' because of what SpcaeX has achived. I'm a fanboy for any company that pushes technology and SpaceX just happens to be one of the most visionary and aggressive companies around.
> Why are you taking a realistic discussion of the company like a shot across the bow?
I'm all for realistic discussion. If you had argued that SpaceX would not exists without NASA or the governmnet (2008 COTS contract), then I would have responded differently. But you did not make realistic discussions, you asserted things that were false.
There is a realistic discussion about SpaceX and the profitiabiltiy of its vision. And I'm happy to talk about that, because it is a difficult thing. Being a 'fanboy' does not preclude realism.
All I did was give you the facts to correct your mistake. Don't be salty.
Sure. But SpaceX is still leading a way, and is way ahead of everyone else. And before they started, literally nobody else cared. Existing launch companies were happy with their status quo. I'm not confident that the other companies currently working on cheap launches would survive if SpaceX folded, so I still believe we need SpaceX in the coming years to keep up the momentum.
Lets luck at the COTS program form NASA.
They selected two companies, SpaceX and Kistler. SpaceX succeeded on everything and they flew the missions at the price agree on in the contract (witch was globally competitive). Kistler was not able and so they went down. The program succeeded and the US now has the by far the cheapest ISS supply vehicle and the only one that can return cargo (SpaceX btw added this feature on top themselves, it was demand by NASA).
Once the contract COTS 2 was negotiated, SpaceX again made the single best and cheapest bid and was again selected in a competitive process against companies that are far larger and have more pull in Washington.
The same goes for Commercial Crew. It was a competitive process that included many companies who have far more access to politicians and career bureaucrats then SpaceX had. And yet again, SpaceX was on of the selected, BECAUSE THEIR OFFER WAS JUST SO MUCH CHEAPER THEN ANYBODY ELSE.
Have you ever consider that maybe SpaceX gets these contracts because they are just far cheaper then anybody else?
Many of the numbers I am talking about here are public. You can go look it up. The reality is your argument is absolute bullshit that has absolutely no bases in reality.
Now that was NASA, lets look at DoD. Clearly SpaceX only gets all these contracts because they play golf with so many generals, right?
Again, totally false. Its the exact opposite, ULA had long been the prime contract to the point where the launches were no longer competitively bid. It took multiple law suits against the DoD before SpaceX was even allowed to compete. Then they had to go threw a very hard certification process.
Once SpaceX was allowed to compete they massively underbid the competition to the point where ULA has actually stopped even bidding because they know they have no chance at winning in a fair competition.
Also, the notion that SpaceX after 2008 depended on government contracts is totally false. Only about 1/3 of SpaceX launches are for the US government and they have tons of private launches on their waiting list.
All in all, your entire argument is totally false.
Kinda why I'm happy NASA still has their own plans, and other competitors are out there too. Hinging everything on one rocket isn't a good idea, and when the shuttle was retired, we ended up without a way to space for years.