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Would you say SpaceX is doing better than NASA?


Duski

SpaceX vs NASA  

70 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you think SpaceX is doing better than NASA with planetary exploration?

    • Yes
      26
    • No
      44


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13 minutes ago, Pipcard said:

Indeed, NASA has a much longer history, but saying SpaceX has "nothing" is a bit disingenuous, don't you think?

And SpaceX is doing better than NASA at cost-efficiency.

From the OP:

Quote

1. Do you think SpaceX is doing better than NASA with planetary exploration?

SpaceX has done nothing.

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14 minutes ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

From the OP:

SpaceX has done nothing.

That's just the poll question. The OP said " in terms of planetary exploration" but they also defined it as "quite possibly how they do things different which makes them better." And Dragon is delivering cargo to the ISS much cheaper than Shuttle+MPLM ever did.

At least they're planning to do Red Dragon in the near future, I mean that NASA list also includes JWST which hasn't launched yet.

Edited by Pipcard
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I read the poll question, rolled my eyes, and posted my response.  The substance of the OP was lost in his poll question.  Simple as that.  Just another SpaceX lovefest, in the making, I thought.  Keep in mind that NASA is a jobs program.  Doing things cost effectively is not part of the deal.  They exist to keep American contractors flush with taxpayer money.  Any scientific goals are backseated to that.  It's like comparing apples to launch providers. 

Edited by SuperFastJellyfish
Home from work, finally! :)
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1 hour ago, DDE said:

It succeeded in murdering Roscosmos's previous chief. Say it with me: asymmetric dimethylhydrazine nitrogen tetroxide extremely toxic extremely cancerogenic. Russian launchers may be rugged designs, but right now they are suffering greatly from crappy management and crappy workmanship, to the point that it's becoming a major commercial liability. Those payloads are insured, ya know?

Well then that's about the management, not the ship.

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I think SpaceX is doing better than NASA in:

  • Reducing the costs to go into Space
  • Will hopefully take over the LEO sector, like supplying space stations etc.

I think NASA is doing better than SpaceX in:

  • Unmanned Planetary & Moon landings
  • Manned Moon landings
  • Exploring Exo-Planets, other Galaxies, other Stars etc.

 

I'm not gonna go over about the inventions NASA has created that we use as normal people, but I believe NASA will be the ones managing the Mars landing. SpaceX may help with their Rockets, to actually get Astronauts to Mars. But it is possible that maybe NASA will lose the race to Mars because last I heard, NASA's Orion spacecraft is having trouble even getting through the Van Allen Radiation belt, but I don't know that much about the Dragon's spacecraft problems, if it has any.

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1 hour ago, Pipcard said:

Indeed, NASA has a much longer history, but saying SpaceX has "nothing" is a bit disingenuous, don't you think?

And SpaceX is doing better than NASA at cost-efficiency.

NASA has no rocket program except SLS, which is being contracted out for construction. NASA doesn't build rockets. 

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1 hour ago, Matuchkin said:

Well then that's about the management, not the ship.

Yeah, but combined they prove doubly nasty. Plus it seems that even working as intended the ecological impact of that thing is horrific.

But then, it's unclear when the next generation of Russian launchers comes into active play: Angara (a few test flights), Zenit (production has not yet been duplicated) and Soyuz-5/Fenix (not yet on the drawing board). And the old Soviet tech is absolutely at its limits, which is why minor and major mishaps keep happening.

8 minutes ago, NateDaBeast said:

But it is possible that maybe NASA will lose the race to Mars because last I heard, NASA's Orion spacecraft is having trouble even getting through the Van Allen Radiation belt, but I don't know that much about the Dragon's spacecraft problems, if it has any.

Mentioning Orion in the context of a Mars flight is, admittedly, ridiculous. NASA does that all the time, of course.

Right now Orion is being lofted on a Delta IV. In practice, it won't - NASA proclaimed they've given up on human-rating Delta IV and Atlas V (*cough* Boeing Starlifter *cough*). The smallest launcher it's designed to be used with - upon the demise of Ares I - is the SLS, which can do nothing less than deliver an Apollo-style stack to the Moon. If Orion is going to Mars, it's going as a part of a completely different, much larger, and not yet even prototyped ship - and I see no reason to take the descent vehicle to Mars and back anyway.

Edited by DDE
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38 minutes ago, The Yellow Dart said:

Here is my poorly made response to this poorly worded poll:

bNgQCd4.png

 

 

 

Good thing we were talking about tangible qualities. I take it that the two lines end when Musk lands on Mars, and the company is left leaderless, but why does the red line end. The world cannot survive without Musk-ness.

 

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25 minutes ago, Gojira1000 said:

Is West Point doing better than Yale with graduating generals?

Yes or no

General PitA, general PN, as far as I know neither school graduates generals.

The better question to ask, was this thread flame-bait.

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SpaceX hasn't done any planetary exploration yet because nobody has contracted them to do it yet, and Elon didn't have the spare funds and launch vehicle to do it himself until now.

SpaceX has had quite a bit of success designing and building rockets that have better performance per dollar than the competition. ULA and Arianespace are scrambling around trying to figure out what to do once they have been priced out of the commercial market. DoD is drooling over the size of spy sat they will be able to launch with FH. Customers are already asking to be to be the first to launch on a reused F9, probably sometime this fall. BFR will be revealed in September. And the great thing is that NASA will be able to spend more on science once they arent shelling out hundreds of millions for ULA flights.

ULA and Arianespace will survive as guaranteed access to space for their governments, but they will have a hard time convincing commercial customers to pay their prices.

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2 hours ago, Pipcard said:

Dragon is delivering cargo to the ISS much cheaper than Shuttle+MPLM ever did

Yet as far I know is the most expensive per (pressurized) kg in the competition

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3 hours ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

Let's let the evidence answer this silly question.

SpaceX:

NASA:

 

And compare NASA and SpaceX age....when u give SpaceX so many years as NASA  had, they will probably be really on Mars now...

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25 minutes ago, kunok said:

Yet as far I know is the most expensive per (pressurized) kg in the competition

You mean vapor-ware, its generally free of charge.

4 hours ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

Let's let the evidence answer this silly question.

SpaceX:

NASA:

 

Voyager is necro. :cool:

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1 hour ago, PB666 said:

General PitA, general PN, as far as I know neither school graduates generals.

The better question to ask, was this thread flame-bait.

I didn't mean for this to be flame-bait, I'm quite new in this community so sorry if I am asking idiotic questions.

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4 hours ago, Toonu said:

And compare NASA and SpaceX age....when u give SpaceX so many years as NASA  had, they will probably be really on Mars now...

SpaceX benefits from 60 years of NASA research and development.

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Cumulative state : NASA is better than SpaceX.

Development rate : SpaceX is faster* than NASA.

Caveat : SpaceX is a NASA contractor and grows off NASA budget.

So who deserves the likes ?

Edited by YNM
* : which, to most if not all, is in the line of "better : stronger faster brighter", hence the bias.
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SpaceX has done nothing in terms of space exploration. So, this point goes to NASA.

NASA has messed-up internal structures (like all goverment-institutes) and wastes money because they are told to (Constellation, SLS). SpaceX gives you more spacecraft per R&D dollar. Point goes to SpaceX.

=> SpaceX should be the taxi driver and hardware manufacturer. NASA should drop their SLS and rely on 3rd party spacecrafts entirely. NASA should focus on science equipment, probes, basic research, mission planning. When it comes to execute a mission, go buy some SpaceX or other 3rd party craft.

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3 hours ago, lugge said:

=> SpaceX should be the taxi driver and hardware manufacturer. NASA should drop their SLS and rely on 3rd party spacecrafts entirely.

An unwisely idealistic view. SLS at least relies on off-the-shelf kit. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is below that league, and the MCT is at the very best a decade away from completion. Unlike Falcon 9, there is no other customer for super-heavies except NASA and probably the USAAF if the latter get serious about Rods from God, which makes the project not terribly commercially viable compared to Falcons.

And something tells me Musk won't be allowed to colonize Mars by himself, because the US Congress is already playing with fire as it flirts with the notions of allowing private companies to lay claim to asteroids in order to bypass the Outer Space Treaty; they probably won't let privateer boots hit Martian ground.

So, in your proposed system, the MCT is unlikely to exist and the SLS is completely necessary.

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Besides, there can never be "partnership" between NASA and SpaceX simply because NASA is legally obligated to follow strict procurement regulations.

There would have to be a fair procurement competition between private corporations to bid for a NASA Mars contract, which means that SpaceX would have to compete against Boeing, Lockmart, and probably others who are perfectly capable of developing hardware per NASA requirements. 

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Well,  I don't want to discuss if SLS is necessary or not, there's plenty of discussion about that.

What is definetly NOT necessary are two SLS-sized launcher stages. NASA is slowed down because of internal structures and goverment decisions. So let some other, more-effective company build one.

And yes, there will be a competition between SpaceX and others. So SpaceX might lose this competition, yes.

This aren't the 60's. There are other players. No need for NASA to do "trivial" tasks like rocket R&D. SpaceX (amongst others) have proved to be very cost-effective.

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Except Falcon Heavy won't put as much to LEO as SLS. FH looks set to be a great rocket, 50 tons in LEO is awesome, but it's not 70 like SLS Block I and it's certainly not 100+ like later SLS variants are planned to be. Indeed SLS Block 2 claims are more in line with the lower estimates for BFR.

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Why is this even a topic? One is a government funded space exploration agency, the other is a private satellite launch company which hopes to do planetary exploration in the future. They are not competing and their current goals aren't even comparable. Neither is doing 'better' than the other.

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