• whyalone@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    28
    ·
    4 months ago

    They are not doing well, they take tax payer money and blow them up, literally.

      • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        It is and it isn’t. If NASA sent up rockets like them, blew them up, and said “that’s what we wanted to happen!”, at the same tax dollar spent ratio, there would be congressional hearings and massive outrage.

        • ZMoney@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          4 months ago

          When you build new things they necessarily blow up during the development process. NASA is hobbled by a flat budget so they can’t afford to blow anything up. So they can’t build anything new, which is why SLS is a bunch of old parts scrapped together.

          • Emerald@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            4 months ago

            SLS is a bunch of old parts scrapped together.

            True. But those old parts scrapped together is what makes SLS beautiful. :P

    • EpeeGnome@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      They are paid both taxpayer and private money to put things, including people now, safely into orbit. A thing they do frequently and reliably, without any explosions. Yes, their dramatically destructive development method of launching unproven prototypes and pushing them to the limit does seem wasteful, but it actually has allowed their engineers to very effectively identify the weak points in their systems and remove or compensate for them, resulting in designs that are redundant only where needed, but still reliable. Despite a lot of competition from international and the older American aerospace companies, they remain one of the most cost effective and reliable options for space launches in the game.

      Now, I’m all for some Musk mocking these days after how much of a jackass he’s revealed himself to be, and I am now convinced that Space-X succeeded in spite of him, but it is successful.