Now go check out how much each launch of the shuttle cost ($1.5 billion per flight) and compare it to the costs by SpaceX. The shuttle was launched 135 times, SpaceX has had more launches than that in the last 3 years. That tiny computer got us to the moon, but it wasn’t enough to make rockets or boosters be able to land or be reusable. And don’t bring up the farce of reusability of the shuttle. The number I recall from back when it was still flying was a 75% overhaul to get it flight ready.
Elon may be an enormous asshole, but SpaceX has taken what they got from NASA and moved it to the point where they’re one of a handful of groups who could get us back to the moon, and doing better than any corporation on that front (China may surpass them, and Artemis only counts as a long-term concern if they can do more than 5 or 6 launches ever, which is not the current plan).
I mean arguably we could’ve done all of that with nasa if nasa had received a similar level of funding to SpaceX, but that’s kind of getting into alt-history.
Now go check out how much each launch of the shuttle cost ($1.5 billion per flight) and compare it to the costs by SpaceX. The shuttle was launched 135 times, SpaceX has had more launches than that in the last 3 years. That tiny computer got us to the moon, but it wasn’t enough to make rockets or boosters be able to land or be reusable. And don’t bring up the farce of reusability of the shuttle. The number I recall from back when it was still flying was a 75% overhaul to get it flight ready.
Elon may be an enormous asshole, but SpaceX has taken what they got from NASA and moved it to the point where they’re one of a handful of groups who could get us back to the moon, and doing better than any corporation on that front (China may surpass them, and Artemis only counts as a long-term concern if they can do more than 5 or 6 launches ever, which is not the current plan).
I mean arguably we could’ve done all of that with nasa if nasa had received a similar level of funding to SpaceX, but that’s kind of getting into alt-history.