Re:Starship / Super Heavy
by electriclove on Saturday December 26, 2020 @11:48PM
(#25548939)
The Apollo program was indeed amazing. Government bureaucracy and mediocrity is responsible for 50 years of regression. What SpaceX is doing with Starship is also amazing on so many levels (Raptor engine, reusable, goal of Mars, etc).
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Re:Starship / Super Heavy
by Swenrekcah on Sunday December 27, 2020 @03:20AM
(#25549669)
Government bureaucracy also made the Apollo program.
What got in the way was politics.
What revived space tech was competition.
Politics and bureaucracy can plague private enterprise and competition can be had between or at the behest of government institutions.
It's not as simple as government bad, private good. In fact that simplification can be quite dangerous if it leads to the erosion of government as policy.
Isn't the current government bureaucracy paying for starship development?
Re:Starship / Super Heavy
by bodhiandphysics on Sunday December 27, 2020 @12:42AM
(#25549143)
Almost not at all... something like 50 million so far for a program whose costs are probably in the low billions. Mostly spacex is paying for it with its capital raises
Yeah, all I've heard is $53M for testing in-orbit refueling and $135M for developing the lunar lander version of Starship for the Artemis program.
SpaceX has received contracts worth over $10 billion from the DoD and NASA. Its estimated that they have over 60% of Government launch contracts.
That of course is biased towards the contracted projects, but still provides cashflow and leverage for capital.
Re:Starship / Super Heavy
by mobilefriendly on Sunday December 27, 2020 @12:13AM
(#25549036)
No, government funding to hit work milestones is totally different than government bureaucracy attempting to actually do the work.