Temporarily co-opting the No Stupid Questions element from another thread and transferring it here:
How would you describe the main difference in objectives, purpose, technology, and level of impressiveness (or any other category you think is relevant) in: NASA, and private companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX. Explain as if you're talking to someone who knows virtually nothing about what they're doing or how big of a deal it all is, either in scope of mission or in historical context.
For one, NASA is a governmental, and thus political agency. It’s “mission” is to do what Congress prescribes. And that is mostly the problem. Every two or four years, it’s given a slightly, or drastically different mission.
The truth is, we had space by the balls in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The Saturn V was and is, unmatched. Not even with “the most powerful rocket ever flown “ SLS.
Nasa is full of smart and talented people, who need consistent leadership, funding, and direction.
Space X is (right now) a private entity. Conceived and funded by either the world’s Smartest man, or the world’s biggest conman. Maybe a combination of both. But you can’t argue with results. You can watch interviews from 20+ years ago, Musk says the same thing. He wants to send humans to Mars. He’s said it over and over.
Blue Origin is also a private entity, also conceived and funded by a billionaire. Strangely, BO was founded BEFORE SX.
Because of Space X, it’s very likely the United States has a 5-10 year lead on other countries space program. We lead the world in launches to space. By a large margin. We lead mass to space by a very wide margin. None of this was true ~15 years ago. 15 years ago, the leading launch providers were Russia and Arianna Space. The US only launched military and government satellites.
