If only we had a public agency with fifty plus years of rocket launching experience to do our space exploration. Space X is cool and everything but privatization shouldn't be the go to solution
Let's be clear about something: NASA doesn't build rockets. NASA buys rockets. This particular contract went to SpaceX, a privately-funded upstart venture funded by an eccentric billionaire. Most launches up to now have been by the United Launch Alliance, the cartel formed by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. That probably sounds like two corporations working in concert but those two corporations (which operate as one for space launch) contain the merged husks of - Lockheed - Martin Marietta Aerospace - RCA Astro - GE Aerospace - Boeing Aircraft - Vertol Aircraft - Rockwell International - McDonnell Aircraft - Douglas Aircraft - Hughes Aircraft ...and those are just the big players. Look. Since 2006, the United States has been prisoner to launch monopoly. From 1996 to 2006, the United States was prisoner to a launch duopoly. It's not like there's ever been a whole lot of market choice - aerospace dollars are doled out in a system very reminiscent of Soviet patronage. Even Ben Rich said so (he was griping about the Rockwell B-1B, pretty much the last thing Rockwell made, which might explain why they ended up getting eaten by McDonnell Douglas rather than Lockheed). So for the past 20-plus years, the price of a space launch as been "whatever the fuck we want." Not because NASA has things that dialed but because the military-industrial complex has us that over the barrel. Worthy of note: SpaceX's launch platforms are the only ones IN HISTORY not derived from WMD research. Know the real reason nobody ever tries to land the rocket after it launches the payload? 'cuz they're all derived from mutherfucking ICBMs. So yeah. You can be snarky but fuckin' A we're so knee-deep in predatory privatization that sweet holy jesus there's little reason to be bad-mouthing competition, particularly when it's coming from a company that has never once gotten a bailout, built a bomber or faced congressional hearings.
Trial and error. They have a pretty good record this far, from what I know.
Why not have private industry do this? They're far more efficient, able to do things faster and with less red tape. I'd rather there be both, private and public working in accordance. But then, my sister has never been bitten by a rat.
I've worked for NASA. Getting things done was difficult and frustrating. That's why I'm in the private space industry now. The Space Shuttle, despite the enormous amount of money spent on it, didn't have a wonderful record either. Flight 25 was the challenger disaster. This was Flight 19 of the Falcon 9, which has been rapidly improving since the first flight.
I'm OK with rocket science on the public dolla being difficult and frustrating. They have to answer to Congresspeople that don't believe in dinosaurs ... who represent people that don't believe in science. And I don't trust private industry. It needs regulation. And those regulations can't be made by people who don't believe in dinosaurs.
Is there some kind of regulation you feel commercial rockets are currently lacking? There are already multiple licenses from the FAA and FCC required to launch a rocket and put a payload in space. NASA has deep involvement as a customer if it is their payload or their astronauts or coming close to the ISS.
In a perfect world, maybe, but with the ridiculousness of NASA funding (i.e. senators just funding so that money gets spent in their state), combined with government bureaucracy, NASA is so much slower and more expensive.