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Lori Garver Claims That NASA Is 'Wary' of Elon Musk's Mars Plans (arstechnica.com)
MarkWhittington writes: Ars Technica reports that former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver claimed, during a panel discussion at the Council for Foreign Relations, that many at NASA are "wary" of the Mars ambitions of SpaceX's Elon Musk. While the space agency has yielded low Earth operations to the commercial sector as part of the commercial crew program, it reserves for itself deep space exploration. Garver herself disagrees with that sentiment: "I thought, fundamentally, you just don’t understand. We’re not in a race in a swimming pool where everyone is racing against one another. We're in a cycling race where the government is riding point and the others are drafting behind us, and if someone comes alongside us and can pass us because they’ve found a better way, we don’t get out our tire pump and stick it between their spokes."
At this stage, NASA should just funnel money to SpaceX as fast as they can, before the space programs of other countries make them an irrelevance.
Yes I know that's harsh, but how else can NASA sidestep the politicians that meddle with NASA's long-term plans every election cycle?
Worst. Analogy. Ever.
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He seems really good at using government subsidies to make money for himself.
Well, that's the point isn't it? To jumpstart private industry? You can't do that without the profit motive.
Tesla paid it's 450 million 2009 loan back with interest in four years and went from the brink of bankruptcy to a market cap of 29 billion dollars. Sounds like a success story to me.
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SpaceX lost one launch, for which NASA will NOT pay as per the contract. What is wrong with your perception of reality? He is very far from not delivering what he promised.