• Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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    8 hours ago

    Maybe NASA would have bothered if its funding hadn’t been cut again and again and again…

    • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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      9 hours ago

      NASA farms these out to outside companies to build anyway, as seen with the latest Boeing space fiasco, so I don’t necessarily believe this to be true. These defense contractors seem to be interested in little more than milking the US government for all they’re worth.

        • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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          5 hours ago

          They have a $25B yearly budget.

          What is SpaceX spending on R&D? From what I’ve read, Starship is estimated to cost $10B for development and their R&D budget for 2023 was $1.5B. If NASA was going to build something similar themselves, they’ve had nearly 70 years and hundreds of billions to accomplish it.

          In reality their budget goes toward companies like Boeing, Northrop Grummon, and Lockheed Martin, who then pocket it and build substandard equipment. This is all public information so I can’t imagine why people are downvoting other than being extremely emotional for some inexplicable reason.

        • ripcord@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          What spacecraft do you think they built themselves, without big contractors doing mos5 of the work…?

    • MaggiWuerze
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      9 hours ago

      I actually prefer NASA to focus on science engineering. There’s a need for private launch capabilities anyway and this way NASA can focus on what they do best.

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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        8 hours ago

        What’s the need for private launch capabilities? Private = capitalist. I don’t see much good in capitalist ventures.

        • MaggiWuerze
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          7 hours ago

          Because there’s a need for private satellites? Should NASA use limited resources for that?