Should all of NASA’s budget go to SpaceX? Obviously not. But should they outsource their rocket development and launches to SpaceX, at least until the next competitive bid? Without question.
The Falcon 9 has already revolutionized earth observation and science projects with how cheap it has become to get science satellites into orbit, and Starship is an even crazier reduction in cost and expansion of capabilities. It will be able to lift 100 to 150 tons for $30M per launch, and will be able to launch 30+ times a year. SLS, NASA’s traditionally designed and built rocket, will be able to lift 95 tons to orbit for $2200M per launch, and can only ever launch twice per year.
Do you know how crazy of a difference that is for NASA’s science programs? For their exact same budget, they can either launch 100 tons of experiments once per year, or they can launch 100 tons of experiments every 5 days.
Should all of NASA’s budget go to SpaceX? Obviously not. But should they outsource their rocket development and launches to SpaceX, at least until the next competitive bid? Without question.
The Falcon 9 has already revolutionized earth observation and science projects with how cheap it has become to get science satellites into orbit, and Starship is an even crazier reduction in cost and expansion of capabilities. It will be able to lift 100 to 150 tons for $30M per launch, and will be able to launch 30+ times a year. SLS, NASA’s traditionally designed and built rocket, will be able to lift 95 tons to orbit for $2200M per launch, and can only ever launch twice per year.
Do you know how crazy of a difference that is for NASA’s science programs? For their exact same budget, they can either launch 100 tons of experiments once per year, or they can launch 100 tons of experiments every 5 days.