Resilience vs Efficiency

[...nothing in this world is perfect and you cannot have them all...]

The magical thing about NASA has been its resilience.

Since its establishment in 1958, America’s politicians and masses have been capricious towards space development. NASA was praised as national heroes in the era of Apollo, but there was also a dark time when the majority of people believed NASA was a colossal waste of money until it became cool again thanks to the emergence of New Space.

I believe, one of the reasons for the resilience is that the U.S. had either the genius or the ignorance to place a dozen of NASA centers across the nation.

Let’s imagine a scenario in which people lose interest in space exploration and try to shut down NASA. You cannot just close NASA overnight when you build rockets in Alabama, test them in Arizona and Mississippi, and launch and control them in Florida, with science research done in California.

When JFK was assassinated and the moon program was going nowhere, or at least it appeared so to the public, the US’s space program faced strong opposition from those who disagreed with JFK’s vision. But due to NASA’s model, which traded efficiency for resilience, it wasn’t easy for anyone to just shut it down. The space program survived and humans went to the moon after 6 years from the assassination.

But there is a tradeoff though. The NASA model is just so costly. Spreading your work across the nation adds a lot of extra cost and management effort.

On the other hand, the SpaceX model is all about consolidation and bold execution. They process the stainless steel and the aluminum into the gigantic rockets in one place. The model lowered the cost of launching things (and people).

It’s not just manufacturing and operations. NASA is surrounded by a lot of bureaucrats, local communities, media, and taxpayers that NASA has to deal with and answer to.

SpaceX does not have to answer to a whole country. They can just take the risk and go ahead to do wild things. It is also a plus they don’t have to elect their CEO every four years. Without any doubt, Elon’s powerful leadership has been the primary driver of SpaceX’s flywheel.

...but life is like a coin...

There are two sides to everything and SpaceX’s model is not an exception. Only the spectacular success is visible now, but another side is waiting for its turn to rise. The company went “all-in” on its burgeoning broadband internet service, Starlink. It was a bet with great risk and it’s too late to turn back. Yes, you need to be bold to change the world, but it’s still a gamble, far from being resilient.

Unfortunately, nothing in this world is perfect and you cannot have them both. You will have to choose and decide.