Trump causes all this craziness
This drone thing is fascinating. Warfare has completely changed since this war started. I'd be interested to know what our military is gonna do about it, hopefully something more than have everyone carry shotguns
Grok ftw
So much for CATO being libertarian leaning
SpaceX’s Falcon 9, a workhorse rocket, currently costs around $67 million per launch, capable of delivering 22,800 kg to low Earth orbit (LEO). That works out to roughly $2,900 per kg. In contrast, NASA’s Space Shuttle program, which ended in 2011, averaged about $1.5 billion per launch (adjusted for inflation), lifting 27,500 kg to LEO—around $54,500 per kg. This makes Falcon 9 approximately 20 times cheaper per kilogram than the Shuttle. Another NASA system, the Space Launch System (SLS), designed for deep space missions like Artemis, costs over $2 billion per launch for a payload of up to 95,000 kg to LEO, or about $21,000 per kg—still significantly more expensive than Falcon 9, though it serves a different purpose with greater capacity.
For crewed missions, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon offers NASA a seat to the International Space Station (ISS) for about $55 million, according to a 2019 NASA audit, while Boeing’s Starliner (another commercial partner) costs NASA around $90 million per seat. Historically, NASA paid Russia $86 million per seat on the Soyuz spacecraft after the Shuttle retired. The Shuttle itself, when factoring in its crew of up to seven, had a per-seat cost of roughly $214 million ($1.5 billion divided by 7), making SpaceX’s crewed option a massive cost reduction.
SpaceX’s upcoming Starship aims to push costs even lower. Elon Musk has claimed a target of $10 million per launch, delivering 150,000 kg to LEO—just $67 per kg—though current estimates from its test phases suggest costs closer to $100 million per launch, still a fraction of NASA’s SLS. Starship’s full reusability (both booster and upper stage) contrasts with SLS’s expendable design, driving the potential savings.
NASA’s higher costs reflect its broader mandate—scientific research, safety oversight, and ambitious one-off projects—versus SpaceX’s focus on efficiency and scalability. SpaceX benefits from vertical integration (building most components in-house) and rapid iteration, while NASA’s programs often involve multiple contractors and extensive development timelines. For example, SLS development has cost $11.8 billion since 2011, compared to SpaceX’s $5 billion on Starship, a system that’s already flying test missions.
The comparison isn’t entirely apples-to-apples—NASA’s missions often prioritize exploration and redundancy over cost, while SpaceX optimizes for commercial viability. Still, SpaceX’s innovations have undeniably slashed launch prices, influencing NASA to rely on them for ISS resupply and crew transport, saving taxpayers billions compared to maintaining its own fleet like the Shuttle or SLS alone.
Read that book a few years ago, couldn't put it down. A steamer plowing upstream actually tried to surrender to him
Dems have been looking for a party platform, and seem to have found it: Prevent Trump from balancing the budget
