Serious question -- in the past, when NASA wanted to launch a rocket, they would contract with a commercial company such as Lockheed, Douglass, or some similar. Now they contract with companies such as SpaceX. Why is this considered a commercial / private space launch, but the others in the past were considered government funded? NASA is paying for the launches in either case. Or is it the level of involvement and control that NASA has in this case?
Hold on, it's more complicated than that, but we'll get back to that in a second.
NASA contracted to launch the Curiosity rover on the Atlas V rocket, for example, so how is this different? Well, the Atlas V wasn't developed commercially, it was developed as part of the EELV program. This was a USAF program which sought to develop launch vehicles to carry military payloads into orbit in the future. Boeing and Lockheed Martin developed those launch vehicles (which became the Delta IV and Atlas V) but government had a lot of say on the design of the vehicles and ultimately paid for most of the development cost of the vehicles. This is different from SpaceX's example where they developed their own launcher from scratch to their own design, specs, and manufacturing and management processes, etc.
Also, if you look at other NASA launches in recent history the contrast is even stronger. NASA drove and funded development of the Delta II, the Shuttle, the Saturn V, etc, etc.
Additionally, operations for the spacecraft component, the Dragon, is being handled by SpaceX themselves and not by NASA, which is a new thing, especially in the realm of manned spaceflight.
NASA isn't just buying launches, nor are they just buying Dragon spacecraft and launches, they are buying cargo delivered to ISS.
I think that last sentence in your comment summarizes it best. They are now, basically, just paying for "shipping" their cargo into space. That is awesome.
So it's basically like the difference between a company hiring contractors to develop a custom accounting system, vs. going out and buying a copy of Quickbooks. Makes sense now.
My understanding (I may be mistaken) is that the level of involvement and control in the two cases is different. SpaceX runs their own mission control for their launches, and the amount of NASA involvement in creation of the vehicles is different (from what I understand). As an example, the Space Shuttle was built by Boeing, but was operated by NASA. von Braun's crowning achievement at NASA, the Saturn V rocket (about as pure a "NASA" rocket as you normally think of) was built by Douglas/Boeing/etc.
Beyond that, the interesting bit I think is the difference in the contracts that SpaceX has, and the contracts that have traditionally been given to space contractors. Traditionally overruns would be covered by government funding, but in the case of SpaceX they eat their own overruns. The result of this seemingly minor change in funding is that they are far less "quasi-government" than space contractors traditionally have been.
the pricing is a big diff. the big prime contractors tend to cost more per payload mass than SpaceX. plus the primes do pricing based on "cost plus" which means a general incentive to increase costs in order to increase profits. SpaceX is doing firm fixed price quotes, and builds their profit margin into that (at least in long run, after R&D costs recovered), and eats risk, as you mentioned.
Also, and this is big, frankly SpaceX is operated in a much more nimble and entrepreneurial fashion. The primes, while having lots of very smart and well-meaning people working for them, have BDC-itis. Musk wants to dramatically improve the world and the species, and put a colony on Mars. The leadership of the primes seem to just want to make money. Musk/SpaceX is more exciting and compelling for a lot of folks, plus they're more likely to lead to spin-off missions down the road.
Difference is people who managed the program and who paid for it.
Early rocket programs were military programs, rockets make excellent weapons, they can reach around the world and touch someone in less than 90 minutes. The military paid for, and managed, programs for putting payloads into orbit. Of course the military doesn't have a rocket factory, so it hires contractors to build rockets to its specifications, and to research questions the military wants answers too, Etc. NASA worked with the same contractors as part of the civilian space program to give scientists access to space.
In the military programs, function was important, cost was not. That is because the military has "cost plus" contracting, they say "we need a rocket that does X" and the contractor builds it and charges the cost of building it plus the agreed upon 'profit' and the military pays it. There is no incentive to be economical and no incentive to change.
SpaceX on the other hand invested its own money in building its rockets (that's the 'private' part) and they are selling services on these rockets at a price that makes them a profit on their investment (that is the 'commercial' part). They have been re-using research done by NASA and the defense contractors in their work so they have an advantage over earlier efforts in terms of costs. That said, by approaching it as a business rather than a government contract they have removed a huge amount of cost out of the process.
Because of the process, SpaceX isn't necessarily constrained by the restrictions a nation-state might put on them (although in reality if they tried to sell launch services to say Iran the US would prevent that) They also have the right to re-use their technology for their own enterprise so if Bigelowe Aerospace needs someone to launch their space hotels, SpaceX can offer that service without either Bigelow or SpaceX needing 'permission' from the military.
The amazing bit here is that nation-state space programs were possible because nobody expected to 'make' money, they just took tax payer money and burned it at a high rate :-). In this case SpaceX is looking to recoup their development costs and then some. Not being under the whims of a nation-state budgeting authority (like the US Congress) allows them to make progress quickly.
It's a lot like the difference between contracting to have a piece of software built, and buying a copy of a piece of software that's already built. You get a lot of control with the former, but also a lot of cost, and the result often doesn't generalize well.
Previous systems had heavy input for specs and design from NASA. With this, NASA basically says, "X pounds for Y dollars to ISS" and SpaceX is figuring out all the details.
I think the main difference is that the launch is made using a commercial launch vehicle/capsule. If you had the money, you could hand Space X a ball of metal and a pile of cash and they will put it in orbit for you. Just because the government is the first paying customer doesn't mean it isn't commercial.
One small correction which I think makes the difference even clearer: the US government was not the first paying customer. SpaceX has already delivered several satellites into orbit for other non-US governments and corporations.
I stand corrected. Sort of since the DoD wasn't really a customer in those cases. And the reference listed doesn't specify that the first flight was paid for by the DoD.
Difference is between cost plus custom government contracts and fixed bid ones.
Think of it like the difference between the cost of developing a new product such as an iPhone before scaling it out (cost plus) and the cost of the delivery of the final product (a final complete iPhone from the city store).
Good question. The main difference is the assumption of risk. Even though previous launches were often operated by private companies (and of course the launchers were built by the private sector) they did so on cost-plus contracts. SpaceX will be paid a fixed fee for delivering cargo.
In the past, Lockheed and Douglass had contracts to build the launch vehicles and support systems, which then became property of and were maintained by NASA. SpaceX has a contract to deliver cargo, meaning that the launch system and control is entirely theirs and NASA cargo is merely hitching a ride on it. Exciting times, my friend.
