Why is it taking so long to build the SLS?

[Camacha]

Just goes to show why capitalisim won the cold war.

Unadulterated capitalism does not exist anywhere, not even in the US. It is always a free market socialism hybrid. For the better, I would say, as the richest, safest countries have strong social systems to go along with their free markets.

[Rakaydos]

Capitalisim vs buerocracy- SpaceX Wins.

[Nibb31]

SLS will fly before the MCT, but SpaceX will get to Mars first.

Reasoning: SpaceX has oe goal and one goal only: Get to Mars. NASA has to maintain several other projects that eat up the funds for their Mars effort. Plus, who knows what the next president has in mind for NASA.

SpaceX is a private contractor just like all the others. They only do what people pay them to do. If SpaceX ever goes to Mars, it will be because NASA, or someone else, buys them tickets to go there.

As long as there is no business case for building a Mars transportation infrastructure, nobody is going to build one.

EDIT: Also, in 2018, Mars One wants to send a lander to prove their worth. NASA is getting beaten at their own game.

MarsOne is bogus, and everybody knows it.

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Capitalisim vs buerocracy- SpaceX Wins.

Capitalism and bureaucracy are not mutually exclusive. I've worked at some really bureaucratic private corporations and there are some strong bureaucracies that are driven by profit. SpaceX rides the bureaucracy wave as well as any other government contractor. Falcon and Dragon development were co-funded by NASA. The Merlin engine is based on a NASA design. Without taxpayer money, SpaceX would not exist.

Capitalism only does something when there is a clear ROI. The biggest engineering projects would never have seen the light of day if they had been driven by profit, including Apollo. If there ever is a manned expedition to Mars, it will be government-funded, with government money going to private contractors to artificially create jobs and to make the business sustainable. That's how it works and SpaceX is no different. There is no private space sector.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Nibb31

[Albert VDS]

SpaceX is a private contractor just like all the others. They only do what people pay them to do. If SpaceX ever goes to Mars, it will be because NASA, or someone else, buys them tickets to go there.

Yes because that's how a company works, they only do the things they get paid for and not the things which opens up new possibilities.

Of course a private company will never go to Mars on it's own, because only space agencies can do that.

But seriously, SpaceX is doing what every pioneering company has done before them; exploring new possibilities and make that part of the market grow.

Look at all the commercial satellites in orbit and try saying there is no private space sector. Sure it's a relatively small market, but it is there.

Air travel was thought of as a niche market, but it opened up for the masses. Why? Because flights got cheaper and people had places to go.

SpaceX is trying to do the same; they working up towards their goal by opening parts of the market step by step.

The main reason why we don't have a large private space sector yet is because it's hard and companies rather take the safe road.

That doesn't mean SpaceX wont succeed.

[shynung]

Unlike communication satellites in GEO, the planet Mars currently has no economical value. If a private company like SpaceX goes there, it's because a national space agency (who is usually the first to explore new places) was fed up by its own launch vehicles and decided to buy them from SpaceX. That's a bit of a stretch, if you ask me.

[Nibb31]

Look at all the commercial satellites in orbit and try saying there is no private space sector.

The commercial satellite market only exists because it was heavily subsidized. Most of the launchers were developed, at least partially, on government funds. NASA and other government agencies are the ones doing the pioneering.

[Dkmdlb]

Of course a private company will never go to Mars on it's own, because only space agencies can do that.

Do you have a source for that?

[Kryten]

Do you have a source for that?

At least one company (Lockheed Martin) has supplied both the spacecraft and LV for a Mars mission (MAVEN), and could theoretically repeat it without government funding; but they have no financial incentive to.

[Nibb31]

Do you have a source for that?

Private companies need some sort of financial incentive to invest money into major projects. There is no financial incentive in sending people to Mars. The burden of proof is on the positive claim, not the negative one, so it would be up to the proponents of private Mars exploration to prove that there is some sort of profitability.

[Dkmdlb]

The claim was that "only space agencies can do that." And that's almost certainly not true.

[Nibb31]

Who else has the money and the incentive ?

[Rakaydos]

Who else has the money and the incentive ?

You're assuming corprations dont follow an Amazon model, focusing more on expanding their opportunities than immediate profit.

Tesla Motors (SpaceX's sister company) has been expanding their market share and developing cheaper electric cars by leveraging their presence in the high-end sportcar market to research cheaper tech and pproduce an award winning sedan, which in turn is being leveraed economically for the development of a mass market electric car.

In the same way, SpaceX has been using Falcon 9 launches to fund reusability research, Falcon Heavy development, and MCT development.

[Nibb31]

You're assuming corprations dont follow an Amazon model, focusing more on expanding their opportunities than immediate profit.

Tesla Motors (SpaceX's sister company) has been expanding their market share and developing cheaper electric cars by leveraging their presence in the high-end sportcar market to research cheaper tech and pproduce an award winning sedan, which in turn is being leveraed economically for the development of a mass market electric car.

In the same way, SpaceX has been using Falcon 9 launches to fund reusability research, Falcon Heavy development, and MCT development.

Amazon wasn't funded by the government. Falcon 1 was developed by SpaceX with Musk's money, but built around an engine that was designed by NASA. Falcon 9 and Dragon were developed and designed with a large part of NASA funding through the CRS and CCDev programs. The progression of SpaceX has been impressive, but it was only possible because of NASA's subsidies and support.

Companies like Amazon or Tesla (or IBM, or Apple, or Ford, or Bell) were pioneers, but before they even started, there was a potential untapped market that was waiting for easy online shopping, affordable EVs (or enterprise computing, accessible GUIs, mass-produced cars, or a telephone service). They were visionaries because they had detected the demand for their products before the competitors. They didn't create the demand, it was already latent.

If Musk ever goes to Mars, it will only be because someone pays him to take them there. SpaceX will provide the transport, but they still need customers who want to go there and it will always be an expensive ticket. But there is no market, no latent demand. The only entity that has an incentive is the public sector for research and exploration purposes. There are no private customers.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Nibb31

[Rakaydos]

If Musk ever goes to Mars, it will only be because someone pays him to take them there. SpaceX will provide the transport, but they still need customers who want to go there and it will always be an expensive ticket. But there is no market, no latent demand. The only entity that has an incentive is the public sector for research and exploration purposes. There are no private customers.

Mars 1 may be a hoax, but their clueless donators are not. There IS an untapped, private market for going to mars. Theissue is getting te price down low enough that a spaceX powered "mars 2" is a legitimate idea.

[shynung]

There isn't any economical incentives to go to Mars right now, aside from simple curiosity. Even then, the vast majority of them came from space agencies whose scientists are trying to study Mars up close.

[FishInferno]

Mars 1 may be a hoax, but their clueless donators are not. There IS an untapped, private market for going to mars. Theissue is getting te price down low enough that a spaceX powered "mars 2" is a legitimate idea.

I do not think that Mars One is a hoax, but I am skeptical that they will succeed.

[Nibb31]

Mars 1 may be a hoax, but their clueless donators are not. There IS an untapped, private market for going to mars. Theissue is getting te price down low enough that a spaceX powered "mars 2" is a legitimate idea.

A few thousand people ready to shell out $100 doesn't make a market. When the costs are in the billions of dollars, you're going to need a market in the billions of dollars. Get several thousand people queuing up to pay $1 million, and then we can start talking.

It will be a long time before prices get down to a $1 million ticket for a few days in LEO, let alone for a 2-year trip to Mars and back.

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I do not think that Mars One is a hoax, but I am skeptical that they will succeed.

Not a hoax, but when your business model is about spinning PR just to get the money feed the CEO for a few years, then it's pretty much a scam. Even if it isn't a scam, it's vaporware.

[Sampa]

The SLS is more powerful than the Saturn V, a lot can go wrong and I don't necessarily think that the government wants to lose $10 billion plus whatever it is carrying. It's also meant to carry humans to space, there are more rigorous standards for human space flight than unmanned. Almost everything about it is different than what we have done/built in the past.

I might also add that the damage would be tremendous if the first launches result like the pre-Mercury ICBM test launches...

However, also given the fact that they are reusing old parts from the space shuttle, they are even more rigorously tested (i.e. new parts are not given as rigorous testing as used parts). I am taking this queue from my ongoing A&P mechanics training.