Space exploration and the space industry is one of the most booming industries today.
Space exploration helps to address fundamental questions about our place in the Universe and the
history of our solar system. Through addressing the challenges related to human space exploration
we expand technology, create new industries, and help to foster a peaceful connection with other
nations. Today a lot of government and private organisations are working on developing space
technologies and exploring the outer space. During the cold war a space race started between the
Americans and the Soviets, which led to a rapid development of the space industry and a lot of
space missions thereafter. But since the cold war ended, it seemed that NASA limited its missions
and also called off all the moon missions. It’s shocking to know that we haven’t sent someone to
the moon since 1972, when we were far less capable in terms of technology. To boldly go where no man
has gone before excites us and also instils some fear. Since the development of space travel only 3
countries have launched a man to space. The first was Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin who orbited
the Earth in the Vostok 1 spacecraft. The second was the USA launching Alan Shepherd into space.
It wasn’t until 2003; china lunched its first man into space. But with the exciting new and
cheap technologies that the private space sector companies are providing developments over the
next few years will make space Greater again. Today in this video we are going to discuss
about and compare two space organisations, NASA and SpaceX. Before discussing something more,
we want to make it sure that this video is not intended to hate on NASA, NASA is one of
the first most revolutionary space organisation that reformed space. We just want to highlight
the operational differences between SpaceX and NASA. NASA has achieved truly incredible things,
but will the organisation have to move over for Elon Musk’s amazing spacecraft technologies?
But before talking more about this comparison let us answer an even important question that
many people raise during such conversations. Is comparing NASA and SpaceX fair? Well it’s not
quite that simple. One is a government agency that’s been there for decades and the other
is a young private company hungry for more. So sometimes it may seem that’s its unfair to compare
these two. But in general we can compare their cost efficiency and their rockets. NASA, or the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was created in 1958 when President Dwight D.
Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act. According to the act, NASA’s space
exploration would forever be “devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.” But
despite of the peaceful conception, it was formed primarily as a response to the Soviet Union who
had already put something into the orbit before the USA. And in a few decades NASA went on from a
little aerospace entity to a full fledged advance organisation capable of putting humans on the
surface of moon. NASA had a strong competitor, the Soviets which not only fuelled their growth
but also the mindset of people. But since the cold war ended, things changed. NASA didn’t had
the same enthusiast as before which is evident of the fact that since the 1972, there hasn’t
been a man to moon. But in the last few years a new golden era begun in space industry because
of the revived interest of people in space. And one of the main reason behind that is SpaceX.
SpaceX, created by multitalented tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, was founded on May 6, 2002.
Musk is eventually planning on colonising mars which he has made it clear several times.
Musk has also said that by 2024, SpaceX will have completed a manned mission to Mars.
And in the summer 2020, SpaceX became the first private company to send astronauts into space. The
United States has not launched its own astronauts into space since the Space Shuttle Program ended
in 2011. Since then, Nasa has had to pay Russia for its Soyuz rockets to take American astronauts
to space. It paid more than $3 billion for SpaceX to design, build, test and operate its reusable
capsule for six future space round trips. So, why NASA hasn’t used its own spacecrafts? Well
lets start the comparison between SpaceX and NASA and see what is wrong with NASA’s plan!
The question we must first ask is who has the most funding and the more advanced technology.
Elon musk himself is the third richest man as of October 2020, and is worth over 100 billion
dollars. SpaceX has raised over $1.9 billion in new funding in August, representing its largest
single fundraising round to date. SpaceX makes most of its money from delivering payloads for
NASA and launching commercial satellites into space. NASA on the other hand has suffered from
underfunding over the years which is one of the reasons why progress regarding the exploration of
space has been ponderous since the moon landing. In 2016, President Barack Obama increased the
budget of around half a billion dollar bringing the total budget to 19 billion dollars.
In 2020, the trump administration called for an increase of 3 billion dollars in NASA’s
budget for the lunar landing on 2024 but it was denied by the House Appropriations Committee. If
we look at the amount of money USA spends on its military which is around 700 billion dollars, if
it even spends a couple of billion dollars more, it will boost NASA’s functioning. So we can see
here that there may be a space race between SpaceX and NASA for going to mars. NASA has had a lot of
setbacks besides the underfunding. It lost two of it space shuttles in 1986 and 2003. 15 astronauts
have been killed in total, which did not help NASA’s ambitions. NASA's space shuttle program
was revolutionary as it was the first major step at regularising space travel and introducing the
concept of rocket reusability however one realm in which it was now revolutionary was
cost despite one of the main promises of the space shuttle being cheaper space flight like with most
other government sponsored programs this space shuttle program fell flat on its face clocking in
at a total of 209 billion dollars or 1.6 billion dollars per launch, to put this in perspective the
SpaceX crew dragon costs 209 million dollars per launch meaning that with the 209 billion dollars
nasa could have launched 1000 crew dragons as opposed to the 134 space shuttle flights. SpaceX
is also aiming to push down the cost of starship to 2 million dollars. So what’s wrong with NASA?
One of the biggest mistake that NASA made was being too ambitious
on the space shuttle program. Many experts think that NASA should have improved upon the Apollo
design and tried to cut downs the costs instead of building a brand new vehicle from scratch.
NASA tried to pack this new space shuttle with as much technology they could
and as a result they made it more complex. This led to some pretty hefty development costs and
the repair and maintenance cost were a nightmare. There could have been many simpler designs that
were suggested which would have reduced a lot of other issues. Also the space shuttle program was
run for far too long. Instead of running for 15 years as planned, it can for 30 years. But it’s
not all NASA’s fault, because at the same time the construction of ISS was approved and it was
being developed. The space shuttle was the only vehicle that could carry ISS parts into orbit
and NASA wasn’t going to design a new vehicle for that. The project was already delayed for
many years and so NASA had no choice other than to reuse the space shuttle at a very expensive
price. NASA plans to step away from supporting the space station by 2024 now, in order to divert the
funding to other projects. So at the end of the day its bit questionable if it was worth
running the space shuttle program for another two decades from the economical point pf view.
However ISS is undoubtedly one of the greatest achievement humanity has achieved. And the final
drawback of the space shuttle was that it didn’t had a crystal clear goal. It was meant to create
viable space travel but it was made for more than that. Otherwise why design such a complex vehicle
rather than having an economically friendly design. Also at that time the public excitement
started to decrease. USA had already been to the moon and had beaten the USSR in the space race.
SO now they didn’t had any competition and that is also a very important reason for the success
of SpaceX, which has very good competition from a lot of organisations nowadays. People
nowadays now want to go to mars and this interest was first mentioned and brought upon in people by
Elon Musk. Things like colony on mars, space travel, space stations and having a vacation in
space has renewed people’s interest in space which also has started the new space race. The space
shuttle didn’t get such an excitement from people and so didn’t had a clearly defined purpose.
SpaceX on the other hand didn’t make this mistakes.
It didn’t just focus on the technology and performance but also reduced the cost and
made space travel cheaper without compromising the safety whereas most government organisations
spend decades on just performance which has resulted in the government funding of these space
organisations less. SPaceX runs like a startup which is focused on both quality and cost.
In NASA, a normal employee would work a maximum of 40 to 50 hours
but in SpaceX employees work for 80 hours which sometimes extend unto 100 hours a week.
And this not because of nay pressure, these people could have job on any company on this planet
but their dedication and vision of SpaceX drives them, which sets SpaceX far ahead in the game.
This is why the productivity of employers is doubled and their designs and technology are
efficient and also cheaper. Since SpaceX is a private company it faces a tough competition
from other companies and has to even compete with companies like Blue Origin and NASA themselves to
win contracts from NASA. SpaceX also has a free-flying spacecraft called Dragon,
which was the first commercial spacecraft ever launched by a private company. Initially it
carried only cargo to the ISS but in the summer of 2020, it became the first private company to carry
astronauts to space. NASA currently has a lot of mission already running that are very amazing
and it is an undeniable fact that the space industry is what is today, all because of NASA.
There is a high level competition between both the companies but at the ned of the
day they both of these organisations continue to work together to continue the space exploration.
There is enough space in both America and the outer space for this two space organisations
and a lot others to thrive. Both the SpaceX and NASA should learn from each other and
continue to revolutionise space travel and exploration. It can also be that NASA
should hand over the mars projects to SpaceX and other private companies and focus on deep space
exploration. So what do you think about these two companies and their programs in future?
How far will they revolutionise the future space exploration by working together? Let us know your
views and questions in the comment section below. And don’t forget to like the video and subscribe
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