That's the big difference, these contractors get given the contract with a big pile of restrictions on how they should build the thing, which usually aren't optimal in terms of cost or performance.

Commercial companies like SpaceX on the other hand, who are spending their own money (i.e. no strings attached) have much more of a free hand on things like technology choice, architecture and procurement.

SLS is like that, but Starliner is playing by that same rules as Crew Dragon as they are both commercial contracts rather that passed into law up by congress.

Starliner is a multi year contract that can be canceled by congress. Which means they are still dependent on congressional good will.

SpaceX is spending plenty of taxpayer money. They have significant contracts from NASA.

>> SpaceX is spending plenty of taxpayer money. They have significant contracts from NASA.

SpaceX is saving plenty of taxpayer money. They have significant contracts from NASA, which they won by offering reliable launch services for a lower price than their competitors.

There, fix that for you.

The GP said:

> Commercial companies like SpaceX on the other hand, who are spending their own money

That's not an accurate description, regardless of whether SpaceX is saving NASA (and the rest of us) money.

They don’t spend taxpayer money. They get paid with taxpayer money, after they have delivered. Big difference.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the difference I see is that SpaceX is spending money they earned from NASA rather than being given money to develop a product.

They have done both. IIRC They received NASA money for development projects like the commercial crew program. But in that case they got less money than their competitors and have already delivered results and are now taking people to the ISS for less recurring cost than the competition will if they ever get there at all. SpaceX has also taken government money for other development projects, as have the competition.

Development is hard, and many projects fail. If that area SpaceX also seems to do better than the competition. This is probably because SpaceX basically takes "development project money" to do things they would like to do anyway, and would do on their own given unlimited funds. They do ignore projects that are not in line with their longer term goals.

IBM once refused to invest in transistor based computer R&D so the government did and gave the results to IBM to profit off of.

Public dollars bootstrapped the rocket program SpaceX was able to bootstrap itself from.

The whole ownership thing is a semantic slight of hand. One planet, one environment; we’re all paying the bill in real terms. If we’d been told all our lives it was prudent for government to do these things rather private profiteers, that’s how it would be.

Thank you for politicizing it correctly for us, though. We’d all be lost without you.

SpaceX vs SLS that hasn’t even launched and will cost some 10x to 100x more by the time it’s done. Sure, spaceX charges money for its missions but it is radically better than the alternative. Any suggestion otherwise is stupidity or a lie.

GP said:

> Commercial companies like SpaceX on the other hand, who are spending their own money

If there's a lie here (and I'm not saying it is a lie), that would be it. SpaceX being cheaper (and maybe better) than the alternatives doesn't change the fact that they are not "spending their own money" exclusively (or even majority).

That’s disingenuous. Is your salary your own money? The fact that you earn the money by working for your employer doesn’t make that money their money. It is still yours. You can spend it however you like.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, SpaceX has received development grants. Less than old space. But more than zero.

True, though a small fraction of their total R&D budgets.

> though a small fraction of their total R&D budgets

Not at the time of the grants.

If I buy a cheeseburger from McDonald's and they decide to invest the profit in R&D, is it still my money at that point?

To be more fair, SpaceX is mostly spending VC money, while SLS is spending taxpayer money. They are gambling that they can make a better product for the customer without working under contract with the customer and being payed for their development..

SLS has a government contract that pays up front for development, and will work hand in hand with the customer throughout development.

> doesn't change the fact that they are not "spending their own money" exclusively (or even majority)

You know you spend my money, right? I mean, I paid taxes, which government used to buy products from the company which pays your salary. So behave please.

:)

Right, but the specs don't come from NASA before the thing is built.

The thing is built and then shopped to NASA as a possible launch platform.

NASA absolutely got to set some specifications on the cargo and crew Dragons, and I'd expect there's at least some consideration to their potential requirements and quiet communication with NASA in Starship's design as well.

There'll be quite a few specifics on the HLS award variant (which, hilariously, still manages to shoehorn an Orion capsule into the plan, at least for now). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS

> hilariously, still manages to shoehorn an Orion capsule into the plan, at least for now

Why is this hilarious? It makes perfect sense for the mission to me. The HLS probably isnt going to return to Earth, and even if it did have that capability, it seems extremely unlikely that we will have humans on a propulsively landed Starship by the end of the decade. Id be much more concerned if Orion wasnt part of the plan

It's hilarious because the mental image it gives me is like when a toddler helps with the groceries by carrying one small item into the house while I tackle all the rest of the bags.

It's the big prestige NASA capsule and it's like a toy besides a Starship.

Right but its a toy that will actually be human rated for flights from and landings on Earth. Sure its not big or flashy, but it will get the job done.

One wonders if that Orion capsule is designed to be interchangeable with some other payload with another function that the US might like to be able to continue to use.

Starship is funded by profits from other contracts. After fulfilling the other contracts (for launch services on Falcon 9 etc.) that cash is theirs to spend without further strings.

The number of stories of contractor companies hiding innovation and automation to maintain a higher number of butts in seats is astounding. Never saw it at NASA but otherwise I know someone who automated his job away and that of over a 10 man team, made it a one button solution. When they told their boss the company immediately claimed IP, took the code, hid it away, and it was never seen again. Now my company is innovating in a space where we could similarly eliminate a lot of busy work and unless the product becomes industry standard these contractors wont touch it because they want to maintain the most useless workers on busy work they can. Missaligned incentives.

I'm not from USA, but my limited understanding is that the contractors (Boeing etc) work for Nasa, which in turn is guided by congress. And congress does not specify engineering or scientific goals, but how much government funds they want directed to their district. Hence it's broken from the start as a vehicle for engineering progress, but successful if the measure of success is to create jobs and subsidies.

Congress mandates specific technical details to force contractor choice and factory location in right district. For example RAC 2 (Saturn V reboot) won the NASA engineering trade off but congress mandated RAC 1 (shuttle tank, engines and boosters but without orbiter) becomes "SLS", to give jobs to shuttle contractors in their districts. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNZx208bw0g

Exactly. This is basically the modern replacement for earmark spending.