It’s evidence that they are solving different problems. Does the fact that Musk spends hundreds of millions on election cycles mean he’s incompetent, or he’s trying to mitigate a political risk you and I don’t have to deal with?
As said elsewhere, that simplistic take falls apart when you realize there would not be a SpaceX if there wasn’t a NASA.
[−]servo_sausage · 2026-11-15 Sun 04:38 UTC ·
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I'm not super convinced that the commercial aerospace industry really needed NASA once super high value satellite services came about in the 90s.
The ideal of a good government industry program, is to create a domestic industry, and A: maintain it at a minimum level for whatever goal is in focus (defence, technology familiarity, investment certainty). And B to help it grow to be independent of the government, so the profits and funding can go elsewhere.
To me, most of what NASA did after Skylab are a bit questionable. With most of the high profile stuff being of limited value compare to the RF and solid state electronics projects.
I mean, Musk himself stated SpaceX needed NASA. New entrants especially benefit from a self insured customer because private industry won’t accept that level of risk.
I agree with a lot of your point, but would probably caveat a lot of the JPL work.
You are shoehorning in an entirely different argument. The question is not about whether NASA invested, or loaned, or contracted or whatever other funding mechanism. It is whether their existence is predicated on the existence of the other, and whether they are both dealing with the same problems.
When people fail to acknowledge that, it becomes a vehicle for a digression and creates tired discussions that follow the same well-worn paths.
I mean, considering nothing like it had been done before (or since) kinda proves the inefficient approach worked. I'm not defending gov inefficiency but often it still leads to good results somehow (and also major disasters, sigh)
What does worked mean in this context? A barely reusable craft that risked human lives to launch mundane satellites and was so unreliable DOD stopped using and was so expensive NASA couldn’t afford to keep it running?
With the technology available and the requirements of the missions it was intended to fulfill, that is what was built. You are being stubborn and annoying.
Can see your point, that spreading the constructions sites across different states was necessary in order to get it built, but in terms of pure engineering, this is probably a negative.
Guess the point is that generally speaking, large scale engineering is typically not done at efficient and creative-levels when directed by the government. Governments have too many stakeholders that have needs that have little do with with engineering that need to be satisfied
...And of course, there are exceptions -guessing the Gemini and Apollo programs would be a good examples.
... oh, and am not trying to call you out, just trying to think through this for myself as well.
What makes you think Gemini and Apollo are counterexamples? They were successful, but were also heavily dependent on contractors and occurred when NASA funding was many multiples of today’s budget when measured by percentage of GDP.
Well, they seemed like highly effective government programs as they were able to get people to the moon under a very tight deadline (and also knew they were extremely expensive programs. Kind of crazy the amounts relatively to gdp they were spending).
And, if they weren't, backs up that the government is not typically a good overseer when it comes engineering programs
(although, still seems like when there is a very strong need, governments can be very good partners).
There is nothing inherently wrong with 'government' providing the source of funding for these programs, and there's nothing wrong with spreading parts of the program across different regions. In fact, in a way it can be cheaper. With the Apollo testing facilities in Mississippi, the Apollo program being built out of Huntsville, and the other 7 locations across the US--you can adequately tap higher end talent while moving some components to cheaper locations to work on.
Agree actually. The government basically funded Spacex for Falcon 9 through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, and probably some of Starship's development too. Yeah, the funding wasn't the question, it's whether the government is a good overseer of programs like this.
Regarding spreading the parts of the development/manufacturing across different regions, am sure there are good benefits to doing this, and cost efficiency is definitely one of them (Boeing's manufacturing is a great example, as well as most auto companies). So yeah, you're right there. But when the government does it, it often is for political reasons, so you wonder if they really do gain cost efficiencies? Hmm...
Personally, my take is the earlier in the development process you are of a product (or vehicle), the better it is to keep everything tight knit (yeah, am a believer in the major concepts of agile development - small, integrated teams working close together, able to iterate fast). And feels like this is also true for design teams in general, no matter what the size of the company. It pays to keep them together as much as possible.
But the more mature a product gets, like a car company that's been building cars for decades, it seems like spreading out manufacturing could be a cost savings.
[−]Alive-in-2025 · 2026-11-15 Sun 06:08 UTC ·
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No, he's trying to bully his way into forcing the government to do what he wants, and he can because he is extremely wealthy. It just happens that in this case, it yields something useful. That is a poor model, the rich should not arbitrarily get their own way.
“Solving different problems” means intentionally creating inefficiencies in an engineering project so that voters can get a little cut of the government funding. It’s a roundabout way of buying votes.
It shows that the government’s incentives are not aligned with the project’s goals and why privatization works better for this type of project.
Said elsewhere, but if NASA didn’t spread their resources around, there likely would not be a NASA. As Musk said, if there was no NASA, there would not be SpaceX. People act like they SpaceX exists in a govt vacuum. They do not.
I don’t take umbrage with the govt/private model when done right. I take issue when people act like one deserves all the credit while ignoring the larger system that is required to bring that success about.
Solving different problems is a good way to put it, but to even be in that position implies they’re trying to meet false objectives and artificial constraints that are beyond the scope of the original endeavor even if there’s some intersection remaining. These extra constraints I imagine have a high likelihood of compromising the original objective by forcing tradeoffs that don’t move the needle and carry costs with ill spent efforts.
The ideal of a good government industry program, is to create a domestic industry, and A: maintain it at a minimum level for whatever goal is in focus (defence, technology familiarity, investment certainty). And B to help it grow to be independent of the government, so the profits and funding can go elsewhere.
To me, most of what NASA did after Skylab are a bit questionable. With most of the high profile stuff being of limited value compare to the RF and solid state electronics projects.
I agree with a lot of your point, but would probably caveat a lot of the JPL work.
When people fail to acknowledge that, it becomes a vehicle for a digression and creates tired discussions that follow the same well-worn paths.
The other system is way better at doing the thing that it was designed for.
And since both of the design goals are important, having both systems is a good thing.
Guess the point is that generally speaking, large scale engineering is typically not done at efficient and creative-levels when directed by the government. Governments have too many stakeholders that have needs that have little do with with engineering that need to be satisfied
...And of course, there are exceptions -guessing the Gemini and Apollo programs would be a good examples.
... oh, and am not trying to call you out, just trying to think through this for myself as well.
And, if they weren't, backs up that the government is not typically a good overseer when it comes engineering programs
(although, still seems like when there is a very strong need, governments can be very good partners).
Regarding spreading the parts of the development/manufacturing across different regions, am sure there are good benefits to doing this, and cost efficiency is definitely one of them (Boeing's manufacturing is a great example, as well as most auto companies). So yeah, you're right there. But when the government does it, it often is for political reasons, so you wonder if they really do gain cost efficiencies? Hmm...
Personally, my take is the earlier in the development process you are of a product (or vehicle), the better it is to keep everything tight knit (yeah, am a believer in the major concepts of agile development - small, integrated teams working close together, able to iterate fast). And feels like this is also true for design teams in general, no matter what the size of the company. It pays to keep them together as much as possible.
But the more mature a product gets, like a car company that's been building cars for decades, it seems like spreading out manufacturing could be a cost savings.
It shows that the government’s incentives are not aligned with the project’s goals and why privatization works better for this type of project.
I don’t take umbrage with the govt/private model when done right. I take issue when people act like one deserves all the credit while ignoring the larger system that is required to bring that success about.