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NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 11 months agoThe DC-X was a self landing rocket long before musk got pissed off that the russians wouldn’t sell him an ICBM
discovermagazine.com/…/dc-x-the-nasa-rocket-that-…
Like most things spacex (and blue origin): it is less about “innovation” as it is more about having a filter between government funding and public oversight. When NASA fucks up? We best do a full investigation and slash their budget and blah blah blah. When private space industry fucks up? Oh ha ha, can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs and it is great that these heroic billionaires are spending their own money because I have no concept of government research grants or contracts.
And plenty of those talented engineers were poached from existing infrastructure (NASA, JPL, Boeing, etc). Which, inarguably, slowed down government and government adjacent research and development drastically.
Huh? The DCX never made it off the drawing board. (They did build a smaller-scale demonstrator but it never made it to space.) Falcon 9 reusability is real and has been for almost a decade. And still, no one has built an orbital class rocket that can do the same.
If you want to argue that propulsive landing is nothing new, you’re right there. We’ve been doing it since the 60s, but on the Moon and Mars. A reusable, orbital-class rocket is a true innovation.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You are muddling Boeing and Lockheed and ULA with the government and ignoring how badly those companies scammed the US taxpayer for how long. Nothing was stopping those companies from being successful except that they valued short term profit over long term success.
I also don’t buy your argument about the boosters, and want to see your raw data.