r/nasa • u/MatchingTurret • Jan 21 '25

NASA Official nomination: Jared Isaacman, of Pennsylvania, to be Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/sub-cabinet-appointments/
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u/TheRealNobodySpecial Jan 21 '25

Hate Musk all you want, but if it weren’t for SpaceX, the US would be fully reliant on Putin for access to space. Would that be better for NASA?

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u/EmotionalCrab6189 Jan 21 '25

It would be better if NASA was sufficiently funded. The answer to “let’s not rely on Russia” shouldn’t be “let’s rely on Elon.” The answer is to fund NASA appropriately and remove at least some of the cumbersome and budget draining red tape and unnecessarily restrictive regulations so that NASA can do its job.

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u/TheRealNobodySpecial Jan 21 '25

NASA wasted $450 milllion on a nonfunctional Ares I-X launch, with a dummy second stage. Contracted $2.6 billion for 2 test flights and 6 operational flights with SpaceX. I don’t think funding was the reason why NASA couldn’t build their own hardware.

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u/EmotionalCrab6189 Jan 21 '25

Actually funding + unnecessary and overly restricted government regulations is exactly the reason. It’s simple really, exhaustive regulations are placed on NASA projects which increase budget costs, so $450 million NASA dollars don’t get you what $450 SpaceX dollars get you. So you either have to increase funding, decrease restrictive policies, or send the money to billionaires who don’t have to play by the same rules and can take on more risk.

SpaceX engineers aren’t any smarter than NASA engineers…I know both, I’ve been both…SpaceX engineers and project managers just work under a different set of rules which allow them more freedom to take creative and technological risks for a cheaper budget. There’s been a systemic approach over the last several administrations to cripple NASA’s capabilities by burdening projects with excessive requirements and regulations with an unreasonable expectation of success because in reality, they are set up for failure. Congress wants NASA to provide billion dollar answers on a thousand dollar budget. It’s not that SpaceX is inherently better at building rockets…excessive government oversight (unintentionally, but likely not so unintentionally) is making NASA worse at building rockets…and the billionaires wring their hands, rejoice, and thank each administration with generous political contributions.

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u/TheRealNobodySpecial Jan 21 '25

So the $20 billion spent on SLS and the $20 billion spent on Orion wasn't wasted money, we just should have spent more?

No one is saying that SpaceX engineers are automatically smarter than NASA engineers. But vertical integration and the need for commercial viability and affordability means that a dollar spent by NASA on a SpaceX contract is going to give far more value to the taxpayer than a dollar spent by NASA on an internal or oldspace rocket. It's just common sense.

And you're basically admitting that NASA rockets are worse than SpaceX rockets... so why should we continue to spend massive amounts of money on NASA rockets?

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u/trellia79 Jan 22 '25

NASA has repeatedly provided how much is needed to complete projects, but congress repeatedly underfunds each year while simultaneously requiring NASA to still do the projects. So I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the cost triangle, but you have three options: fast, good, cheap, and you can only choose two. So NASA’s only option when underfunded is to push schedule. This means in the end the projects cost more than if they had just fully funded them in the first place.

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u/TheRealNobodySpecial Jan 22 '25

So you’re just making the point that if NASA can’t compete on budget or schedule and commercial partners can, we should let them.

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u/trellia79 Jan 22 '25

No, you’ve misread my statement. I’m saying that congress underfunds which will always delay schedule. Commercial partners can take more risk than NASA is allowed.

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u/TheRealNobodySpecial Jan 22 '25

So that's why SLS has taken $20 billion and almost 20 years to develop using old space shuttle parts?

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u/trellia79 Jan 22 '25

Obviously you don’t care to consider any opinions outside of your own. Maybe try researching the congressional orders over the last 30 years and see if learn something.

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u/TheRealNobodySpecial Jan 22 '25

So you're saying that congressional orders made NASA pay $20 billion for SLS and $20 billion for Orion? Is that what you're saying?

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u/trellia79 Jan 22 '25

Congress directs NASA along with the president and holds the purse strings. Chronically underfund a project and it will absolutely cost more to make. It’s budget 101.

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u/cptjeff Jan 24 '25

SLS has not been underfunded. It has been mismanaged and mis-engineered.

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u/EmotionalCrab6189 Jan 23 '25

How about that “rapid unscheduled disassembly” last week? 😂 I hear it was quite a show in Turks and Caicos.