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NASA's budget now is equal to the average budget of the Apollo days. The problem is we get much less for our money today. NASA wastes most of it. They actually provide their contractors a profit incentive to fail instead of providing them an incentive to succeed. That's why SpaceX can do things for half as much.
Yes, inflation is a thing there. An Apollo-style mission couldn't be done with nowadays budget anyways (if they still want to do other projects, which they do).
I also don't think NASA wastes most of their budget. They are working with unproven, new technology.
Now, the same can be said about SpaceX, however, they are working in an environment that has been familiar for decades (Low Earth Orbit).
One of SpaceX's major goals is to reduce the costs of bringing cargo into orbit, that's where private contractors can shine - increasing efficiency.
But if we're talking about a manned Mars mission then SpaceX won't be able to do shit for half as much. Even a billion dollar company can't deal with the costs and risks for something like that. Moon missions, that have been done before, will probably go private too but exploring the actual undiscovered frontier? You need a country behind a mission like that.
You're making excuses for NASA that NASA does not make for itself:
But when averaged over decadal or fifteen-year time scales, the nation’s civil space program has experienced no particularly noteworthy funding peaks. The highest historical funding period was actually in the decade (or 15-year interval) centered on the early 1990s, not during Apollo. Further, if we assume funding stability in constant dollars as shown in Fig. 2, the total in every subsequent decade will match that of the Apollo development decade, 1959-68. Expressed in a slightly different way, NASA could carry out a complete Apollo-scale effort every 15 years between the present day and the 100th anniversary of Sputnik. -- NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin (http://aviationweek.typepad.com/space/2007/03/human_space_exp.html))
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[–] Dfens ago
NASA's budget now is equal to the average budget of the Apollo days. The problem is we get much less for our money today. NASA wastes most of it. They actually provide their contractors a profit incentive to fail instead of providing them an incentive to succeed. That's why SpaceX can do things for half as much.
[–] Apeabel ago
Yes, inflation is a thing there. An Apollo-style mission couldn't be done with nowadays budget anyways (if they still want to do other projects, which they do). I also don't think NASA wastes most of their budget. They are working with unproven, new technology.
Now, the same can be said about SpaceX, however, they are working in an environment that has been familiar for decades (Low Earth Orbit). One of SpaceX's major goals is to reduce the costs of bringing cargo into orbit, that's where private contractors can shine - increasing efficiency. But if we're talking about a manned Mars mission then SpaceX won't be able to do shit for half as much. Even a billion dollar company can't deal with the costs and risks for something like that. Moon missions, that have been done before, will probably go private too but exploring the actual undiscovered frontier? You need a country behind a mission like that.
[–] Dfens ago
You're making excuses for NASA that NASA does not make for itself: