NASA's speed depends on narrowing its mission focus

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 21:13

   Yeah, I, again, kind of use this as an opportunity, maybe hit on another point, too, because I would have loved that for that NASA scientist or engineer from the Apollo era, beyond just computer, I think there's something else that's very different, which is focus. And that's going to be even more important as launch costs continue to come down materially. And what we see from commercial industry and private capital is willing to fund is available, is how well do we wield it and use it?

2. 21:44

   And, you know, who's a you know, who's a great example of this of focus? It's Elon and SpaceX, right? Like this is it. This is a person. It's not just obviously it's SpaceX. He did a Tesla, too. This is somebody who has no problem executing, you know, the Cortez model of burning the ships. Right. I mean, you know, could have the greatest rocket with an unbelievable economic model to support it and endless demand and says, no, obsolete time to focus on the next thing.

3. 22:10

   Shut down Falcon one and he's going to shut down Falcon nine. But it makes great video, doesn't it? You know, and you think about that during the Apollo era, and I mention this from time to time to members of Congress to help them, too, is that if you go back to, I think it's the 1965 NASA Authorization Act, it's five pages. some, you know, standard template language, but more or less it says, beat the Russians to the moon. X dollars that go to Apollo, X dollars that go to Gemini, right? And outside of that, like all this flexibility, but essentially to focus on one or two incredibly important things to the nation. You see, again, SpaceX is very good at doing that. Tesla is, okay, this generation of vehicle, it's time has come. I'm now focusing on doing one or two things extremely well.

4. 22:55

   That has changed considerably at NASA from the space race, where for a very long time, and I do believe this is kind of absent global competition, have been asked to do everything for everyone and try and make as many people as happy as you possibly can. And as a result, you generally make no one happy. In as many congressional districts as possible. Yeah, I mean, even now, I think about it, forgive the kind of D.O.W. example, but we were talking about procurement of next generation aircraft and such.

5. 23:31

   I was like, isn't it so fascinating that right now at a time where, I mean, the F-47 has been available, so you're a sixth generation fighter, that we will still advocate for production of fourth generation, fifth generation, and sixth generation. And as a result, probably what you want to buy from sixth generation is several times more expensive than it needs to be. And you'll get a lot less of them because you're divvying up your resources in so many different directions.

6. 23:54

   You would never see that happen with some of the entrepreneurs we're talking about in their companies. You'd be like, why would I be doing that? It's 50 years old. It's literally a half century ago. I'm going to focus everything I can at doing what I'm supposed to be doing today really well. And NASA, that is something President Trump has been able to give us with our national space policy. And now, actually, global competition being in a second space race has enabled us to do is say, we can't do everything for everyone anymore.

7. 24:17

   We're going to go back and dust off the playbook from the 60s and start focusing on doing a couple things that are extremely hard very well. And to your question, having things like lower launch costs available and private capital willing to make investments alongside government, so it's not 4.5% of the discretionary budget