Ask Lemmy

NASA did a lot of work no doubt they then made all that work public for the private sector to iterate on and improve and bring to market. Eg the accelerometer in ur phone was a NASA invention but it required someone in a private company to decide to put it in a phone and mass produce it.

NASA isn't held to more stringent safety requirements NASA literally defines the safety requirements which they apply to spacex, and any other space company as well as themselves.

NASA blowing up a rocket on takeoff is seen differently than a private company, which just costs more.

Tell me u know nothing about an iterative development and testing cycle without telling me u know nothing about an iterative development and testing cycle. Spacex falcon 9 is statistically safer than literally every other transport method on earth including walking. Its safer than all NASA rockets. Perhaps them blowing up so many rockets taught them how to not blow up rockets?

Now here's the kicker NASA doesn't actually do that much they design some parts or requirements then let private companies take bids to actually build it.

Independent speculative analysis thinks that the commercial launch fees are enough to cover the rocket price. Not to mention that starlink is a profitable service that is funding most of spacex costs as of now. Plus their are other launch companies that offer similar/cheaper(depending on launch profile) launch costs that due to free market completion will keeps costs far lower than NASA launches.

That's how the government works they fund things with taxes that are distributed to all citizens equally. The citizens then use those things to generate value which is taxed and continues the cycle. Every dollar spent at NASA has a 27x return in terms of GDP from the private sector. Ie NASA spends 1$ and releases research/technology then the public uses that research/technology to generate 27$ of value. I never said it more efficient to do everything privately its just more efficient to do most things privately.

Healthcare is a great example its more efficient for the government to negotiate prices on behalf of everyone then let the public market compete to fill that service requirement. Its called socialised healthcare yet still takes advantage of private institutions competing in a free market to fulfill the collective service requirement. If the government runs everything u get the NHS which has gone to shit and cant afford to service all the people. If the government runs nothing u get the american system where the poor get fucked. If the government performs collective bargaining between the people and the provider u get the Australian system where everyone gets healthcare almost instantly of world class quality. U need both private and public working hand in hand. The governments purpose is to ensure free unrestricted competition between private entities and to negotiate with those private entities on behalf of the people that the government represents. That's how a government works it doesn't build a road it negotiates with a bunch of contractors who are competing with each other and pays the cheapest one to build the road.

U say socialist yet u describe communist. I like the socialist policies my government has free healthcare, good roads, cops, firefighters, national defence etc etc. These things cannot function without leveraging the private capital and competition of the free market.