Q. So is SpaceX just being selfish, or what?
A. SpaceX is a business, and like a lot of other businesses, especially publicly traded ones, the goal is to maximize revenue. From their perspective, it makes sense to remove distractions (such as Dragon and Falcon 9) and focus on the future of the company (Starship).
One way of looking at the last 20 years of spaceflight history, and NASA’s efforts to stimulate a low-Earth orbit economy, is to view SpaceX as the exception to the rule. In some sense, an economy based on astronauts in low-Earth orbit got lucky that SpaceX executed so successfully on Dragon. This allowed for the creation of a market around the idea of access at a price of $50 million per seat. At the same time, transportation competitors in cargo (Northrop) and crew (Boeing) struggled mightily. The best SpaceX’s competitors could do was nearly twice the price, and even then, not as reliably.
NASA seems to think Starliner, even at higher prices, will provide the guaranteed access it needs to low-Earth orbit in the 2030s for its astronauts. But in terms of a broader space economy in low-Earth orbit—which for decades the space agency has explicitly sought to foster—it is difficult to see Starliner providing a suitable solution. So yes, SpaceX pulling out of this market harms the industry. But should it be incumbent upon SpaceX to continue a line of business solely because it benefits its peers and competitors? //
Wickwick Ars Legatus Legionis
16y
41,072
I mentioned this after another article on the topic. The problem was NASA simply assumed that Dragon would be available for them in the future. They were used to dealing with contractors who were beholden to NASA's (and the DoD's) purse strings. It never occurred to NASA that a private company might decline to do business with them when given the opportunity. Otherwise, NASA would have included an availability clause in their Commercial Crew contracts that required SpaceX to provide the craft they helped pay for. It was simply NASA hubris that never envisioned this possibility. //
afidel Ars Legatus Legionis
24y
18,341
Subscriptor
Asbestos Muffins said:
nasa was barred from doing anything like that though. the whole point was commercial operators, privately owned and maintained vehicles
No, they weren't. They could have put in optional buys into the contract requirements, say up to 30 launches in traunches of 5 or 10 with pricing not to exceed X% above the previous traunch. That's fairly standard contract language when a buyer is investing heavily in a product.
