Quote:
Originally Posted by gary
Also keep in mind that NASA awarded a USD$2.89 billion contract,
paid for by US taxpayers, to SpaceX to develop the Human Landing System
(HLS) vehicle for Artemis, the SLS equivalent of the Lunar Module.
The HLS is based on the SpaceX Starship.
And only last week, NASA announced it has awarded five more
astronaut missions to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, with a contract worth an
additional USD1.4 billion to the company.
Like in the 2022 Netflix documentary, "Return to Space" - directed by
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhely and Jimmy Chin (the husband and wife team
that made the Academy Award winning "Free Solo") - there is a point
where SpaceX has suffered a series of setbacks when rockets fail
on launch. Elon Musk is pretty much saying to the team they are down
to their last dime. He's starting to run out of cash to fund it. They are
excited to win a NASA contract that, along with a final successful
launch, gets them out of the hole.
The private US aerospace and defence industry has always survived and will
likely to continue to survive predominantly on the largesse of Uncle Sam
and the US taxpayer.
Apollo prime contractors were companies such as Boeing, Grumman,
Rockwell and IBM.
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I take your point but it’s still a private company no matter whether the funds come from other private companies / contractors or the Government and the buck stops with the CEO. They just can’t bail themselves out if things run off the rails and they need high risk capital ( banks aren’t interested)
Yes Elon almost went bankrupt but drive , innovation , determination , a dedicated hard working management team , loyal hardworking employees got his company back on track to where it is today
The Space industry is pretty unique, most mega contracts are Government contracts so the majority of his income will always be derived from Government sources
Cheers