>specifically, getting a purpose-built ISS taxi (the Dragon) built, tested, and launched.
I still don't understand this. NASA funded the development of dragon and a few other companies through their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS 1 and 2) contracts. It's right in the name, Commercial Resupply. NASA isn't building anything in these contracts, just defining requirements and overseeing execution and spending.
>In some ways, this isn't wrong. It's easier to get a private company to do that than to get NASA to do it
But this is wrong. NASA came up with requirements and awarded money to multiple companies (which is how high-risk contacting works -- hedging development by funding multiple companies), one of the companies they funded has been pretty successful, some of them unsuccessful, some are still in development.
The whole argument and perception that NASA and Spacex are somehow competitors just makes no sense to me. It's like saying something like, "The US Navy needed a new frigate and funded the development of it from HII and NASSCO. HII made an amazing new frigate, and NASSCO failed. OMG HII is so amazing why don't we just pay them to be the US Navy?"
> NASA funded the development of dragon and a few other companies through their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS 1 and 2) contracts. It's right in the name, Commercial Resupply. NASA isn't building anything in these contracts, just defining requirements and overseeing execution and spending.
Exactly. They're not building anything. When NASA builds something you get a bunch of agencies also trying to hitch on. Requirements get diluted and less focused. Senator Hypertension from Alabama or Louisiana or wherever won't let the funding get through committee until they build the facility for testing it in a swamp.
The thing about Senator Hypertension, though, is that he completely lacks a sense of irony, and thus, also thinks government is inherently wasteful and that some private business can do anything government can do, better, no matter what the task is. So he's also okay with letting some well-capitalized company owned by a billionaire - I mean, a scrappy underdog of a company built with good-ol' American know-how - get a contract to do it instead of NASA.
And in doing that, he's willing to forego his swamp facility.
I still don't understand this. NASA funded the development of dragon and a few other companies through their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS 1 and 2) contracts. It's right in the name, Commercial Resupply. NASA isn't building anything in these contracts, just defining requirements and overseeing execution and spending.
>In some ways, this isn't wrong. It's easier to get a private company to do that than to get NASA to do it
But this is wrong. NASA came up with requirements and awarded money to multiple companies (which is how high-risk contacting works -- hedging development by funding multiple companies), one of the companies they funded has been pretty successful, some of them unsuccessful, some are still in development.
The whole argument and perception that NASA and Spacex are somehow competitors just makes no sense to me. It's like saying something like, "The US Navy needed a new frigate and funded the development of it from HII and NASSCO. HII made an amazing new frigate, and NASSCO failed. OMG HII is so amazing why don't we just pay them to be the US Navy?"