NASAās budget isnāt the only reason SpaceX has been able to innovate faster. NASA is incredibly risk averse, as their failures reflect onto the US government and by extension their budget. Even when safety isnāt important such as with unmanned rockets, NASA doesnāt want news headlines blasting them for their rocketās tendencies to blow up. SpaceX, by being a private company, is free to take risks and have rockets explode (if theyāre unmanned that is) without much repercussions as theyāre a private company, not the US government. Theyāve had 7 unmanned rockets explode and several more reusable landerās fail in their course to develop cheaper, reusable rockets, which had NASA done themselves would have been a national embarrassment, but because it was a private company they were free to take those risks to learn from their mistakes
NASAās budget isnāt the only reason SpaceX has been able to innovate faster. NASA is incredibly risk averse, as their failures reflect onto the US government and by extension their budget. Even when safety isnāt important such as with unmanned rockets, NASA doesnāt want news headlines blasting them for their rocketās tendencies to blow up. SpaceX, by being a private company, is free to take risks and have rockets explode (if theyāre unmanned that is) without much repercussions as theyāre a private company, not the US government. Theyāve had 7 unmanned rockets explode and several more reusable landerās fail in their course to develop cheaper, reusable rockets, which had NASA done themselves would have been a national embarrassment, but because it was a private company they were free to take those risks to learn from their mistakes