Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - Space X becomes first private company to launch humans to space

station · 05-30-2020, 04:34 PM

The Daily had a podcast about the back story on this a few days ago.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcas...=1000476041696

Crib notes:
- GWB cancelled the space shuttle program effective in 2010 due to safety concerns after the Columbia disaster.
- The goal of privatization is to allow private business to focus on human space travel and allow NASA to re-focus its efforts on large-scale exploratory missions.
- Contracts were given to both Boeing and SpaceX to create competition and SpaceX won. Boeing is still about a year out.
- The NASA budget for this program was $20 billion, SpaceX is delivering it for $2.6 billion.
- Analogies are drawn to the beginning of commercial air travel. It was exclusive and elitist at first but technological innovations ultimately brought it to the level of the common person; the same may happen with space travel.

05-30-2020, 04:34 PM	#25
station Crash and Bang Winger Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Salmon Arm, BC Exp:	The Daily had a podcast about the back story on this a few days ago. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcas...=1000476041696 Crib notes: - GWB cancelled the space shuttle program effective in 2010 due to safety concerns after the Columbia disaster. - The goal of privatization is to allow private business to focus on human space travel and allow NASA to re-focus its efforts on large-scale exploratory missions. - Contracts were given to both Boeing and SpaceX to create competition and SpaceX won. Boeing is still about a year out. - The NASA budget for this program was $20 billion, SpaceX is delivering it for $2.6 billion. - Analogies are drawn to the beginning of commercial air travel. It was exclusive and elitist at first but technological innovations ultimately brought it to the level of the common person; the same may happen with space travel.