this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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I take issue with commercial being a dead end in space. Not only has commercial spaceflight been VERY successful for NASA, it has saved huge amounts of money over what Griffin was proposing instead. Griffin was advocating for the Constellation program. Lets take just a piece of that where commercial spaceflight is there instead: flying crew to the ISS which we do two times per year.
The Constellation program would have used the Ares I rocket and the Orion Crew capsule. The estimated flight cost of this configuration was about $1.1 billion together for two flights. source
The commercial option used instead is the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon capsule. The actual flight cost is $176 for the same two flights per year. source
For the cost of ONE year of NASA Constellation flights to the ISS, the commercial solution pays for 6 1/4 years of flights instead.
Commercial spaceflight for NASA reminds me of when the Postal Service contracted out airmail. From 1918 to 1926, all air mail service was flown by US government pilots, in US government planes. Then they contracted it out to a little airplane company named Boeing.
I think NASA should absolutely be focused on deep space exploration, and LEO operations. But even if all they do is contract out their launches it would encourage people to reduce launch costs, which I think should be our number two goal after fighting climate change.
Because obviously that's what we need, to be encouraging the expansion of capitalism into space.
Tim Curry's gonna have an aneurysm.
If you feel that strongly about the negative consequences of spaceflight, you should dispose of the computer or mobile device you're using to post this on. Those are products of the commercialization of miniaturization needed to be small and light enough for the Lunar Lander to take humans to the moon. source
You wouldn't want to be a hypocrite, now would you?
EDIT: I made a bad assumption about the poster, and apologized in a follow up post. I'm not going to remove my mistaken post so the context is not lost
I love space exploration. It's absolutely something we as a species should be doing. We just shouldn't be doing it for the motives of profit.
But sure, put things in my mouth asshat
I'll admit this is the first time I've seen someone be pro-spaceflight, but nuanced opposition with why we're going to space.
It was a wrong assumption on my part. I apologize.
how is the "commercial" avenue supposed to make profit if nasa isn't funding it. and if it can't, isn't it just a government program?
the dead end of commercial space is that it can only function as a factor of government work. it's not a viable industry by itself.
you can see this tale play out time and time again in other industries that have had the same problem, it doesn't end well, it ends badly.
also you don't need to do the big text
The alternative to this LEO space work is that taxpayers pay 6.25 times as much for the same service. Where is the logic in that?
I disagree with your assessment that it is an inevitability. However, lets assume for a moment you're right and it ends in bankruptcy for SpaceX. In the time it will have operated it will have:
If commercial space company SpaceX went out of business tomorrow, we'd still be better off than had NASA ever contracted with them.
Thank you for sharing your opinion on that.
NASA is not the only entity that send things into orbit.
SpaceX does not seems to only rely on government orders.
True, NASA helped (well, it is an understatment) SpaceX, but now it could capitalize on it if the costs are the one @[email protected] pointed out.