[platybubsy]

The waste does not at all stem only from different risk tolerances. SpaceX launches NASA astronauts which means that they also need to comply to the same standards. Pork barrel projects like SLS is the real reason why everything NASA does is so expensive and late.

The statement that NASA would have achieved reuse eventually is weird considering that NASA still exists today, 35 years later, without succeeding.

[bumby]

>SpaceX launches NASA astronauts which means that they also need to comply to the same standards

Sorry, this is false. When NASA engineers have raised the question of non-adherence to NASA standards by CCP contractors, they were told it wasn’t their role to dictate those kinds of requirements. You can see this in a number of mishaps, like when a strut failure resulted in a lost rocket because they didn’t want to follow well-established and codified aerospace supply chain quality standards. NASA is buying a service with CCP, not a product. This says nothing of the political requirements NASA must work through that contractors do not.

>The statement that NASA would have achieved reuse eventually is weird considering that NASA still exists today, 35 years later, without succeeding.

NASA does, but that NASA VTOL rocket program was cancelled in 1996. My point was that the tech was feasible for NASA, but not a priority.

[platybubsy]

Does Falcon 9 fail more often than other rockets?

NASA spending 35 years pursuing pork projects instead of useful technologies like VTOL sounds like the very definition of waste to me.