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Re:SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit by tsimionescu on Saturday May 30, 2020 @06:52PM (#23365550)
I can't imagine the thought process that feels that the IP being owned by a private company who answers to no one and has no accountability to anyone is 'more sustainable' than it being owned by the public through a non-military organization (NASA)...
Re:SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit by nickik on Saturday May 30, 2020 @07:24PM (#23365745)
Because NASA isn't just free do things with that knowledge even if somebody could pay. You live in a total fantasyland when you believe that NASA just having some IP does any good for anybody.

You need manufacturing base and a business model to sustain commercial operation. NASA is a government agency that gets its priority sets by a congress that is not very interested in space flight, and putting the budget wherever they want at any given time. So NASA could have lots of IP about 4 different vehicles that gets into LEO but no amount of money could actually get you there.

They can give the IP to a 3rd company of course, but because they way it was designed it would not really have any commercial use, and likely it only works connected together with other government IP/hardware that you also easily get.

Now you have a private company, who has a very clear business intensive, to get the greatest possible use out of that IP, it only uses other commercially available tools and has synergy with other parts of their business that also has other commercial uses. The industrial base and teams are sustained, and not removed when congress lowers budget for a year.

So the Dragon 2 works with Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX always operates Falcon 9 launch pads and they have plenty of rockets to fly and a manufacturing base that makes more of them. So now you have a much easier time to get the whole system together for an actual 3rd party flight, as the rocket, launch pad, infrastructure is already there and commercially operated.

Re:SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit by gridspy on Saturday May 30, 2020 @09:42PM (#23366502)
You make a lot of good points, but it's not quite as grim as the picture you have drawn.

NASA had a great deal of knowledge from previous projects which they shared liberally with SpaceX from very early on in their development. Engines such as the Merlin are heavily influenced from NASA IP.

So in essence NASA still is a clearing house of knowledge, and much of the info learned by NASA and SpaceX to date continues to be shared with other providers to the benefit of all.

I do agree however with the sentiment that SpaceX can sell seats or rocket flights in a way that NASA was never set up to do.

Re:SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit by Kutta on Sunday May 31, 2020 @06:45AM (#23368634)
The human spaceflight ability of NASA trended sharply to zero in the last 50 years, with space travel getting more expensive, more dangerous and far less capable than before, going from moon transfer to LEO only to no human spaceflight whatsoever. If you prefer to abolish human spaceflight, then you can be happy with NASA, if not, then you have to present rather strong evidence why the status quo will magically yield better outcomes.