"Private industry is much more efficient and faster than NASA"
Time from first concept to first operational flight:
- Saturn V: ~11 years (1957–1968)
- Space Shuttle: ~13 years (1968–1981)
- SLS: ~14 years (2012–2026)
- SpaceX Starship: 21 years+ (2005–?, no operational flight yet)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@thomasfuchs
Much more efficient at disaster when you don't have to bother with all the failsafes.
@thomasfuchs that's always such a strange take to me.
Government bodies stretch their budgets way more effectively than private industry.
And it should be obvious that that is so because they don't need a profit.
@snarfmason to be fair, none of the private companies make profits either; e.g. SpaceX had a $4.9 billion net loss on $18.7 billion revenue in 2025
@thomasfuchs hahaha well true. But at least theoretically they are trying to, right?
@snarfmason I assume the reason they want to IPO now is that they need money and likely think the AI bubble is going to deflate markets soon
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