[jvm]

This is such an annoying argument.

The government gave $18B to the SLS and so far has vapor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

The government spent $211B on the shuttle program and got 133 launches. SpaceX will probably surpass that number this year at a fraction of the cost.

NASA's record on rockets since Apollo has been abysmal.

I don't think government is necessarily bad (the Russians did a much better job in recent decades!) but it leans into its failures and often has bad incentives. SpaceX fails fast, has great incentives, and has achieved an incredible amount on a (comparatively) shoestring budget.

[SahAssar]

SpaceX has had very impressive successes, some government programs have failed or run over budget. Some government programs were also impressive, both in the US and abroad.

I think we can all agree on those points. The point of the GP that I (and I think many others) react to is the "Only in America things like this can happen" part. I just don't get American exceptionalism I guess.

[conductr]

It's a "standing on shoulders of giants"-type figure of speech that American's use. Like, NASA is foundational to the accomplishments of SpaceX. Many countries on Earth do not have space programs at all. Our history with space as a nation is profound to our national identity whether we realize it or not.

[adampk]

Do you mean you don't understand why American's would think that America has done incredible things, or do you not believe America has done incredible things?

[SahAssar]

Neither, the term refers to the belief that the US is somehow inherently different from other nations, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

Saying that something "could only happen in America" (usually) indicates a view that America is somehow unique (as in the American exceptionalist view).

I'm not saying that America hasn't done great things, or that Americans shouldn't believe they have done great things. It's just that no country is unique in this manner, and Americans seem to often say they are in ways that I rarely see other countries do.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Saying that something "could only happen in America" (usually) indicates a view that America is somehow unique (as in the American exceptionalist view).

Having had a bit of a ground-level view of this going back over a decade, yes, America is exceptional in this respect. Lots of people tried to do private launch overseas. Trivial barriers like explosives licenses stopped most at the gate. The sole success stories are in the U.K. (Skyline) and New Zealand (Rocket Lab), with the former stretching the definition of "success." Meanwhile, America has SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and a trove of others.

The permissiveness and commercial latitude the U.S. government affords Americans is unique. The protections American law and culture afford private property is similarly quite extreme. These facets come with downsides. But in 2001, I can confidently say that had Elon started SpaceX anywhere but in America, it would have dismally failed.

[jacquesm]

None of that would have happened without Werner von Braun and his crew. And Russia beat the US to space to begin with.

Yes, SpaceX could only happen in the United States. But let't not pretend that the whole American package warrants the 'favored and exceptional nation' badge that so many seem to want to bestow on it, which is what this American exceptionalism is all about. Shining city on the hill and more of that kind of crap.

[JumpCrisscross]

> None of that would have happened without Werner von Braun and his crew

One cannot ignore that they did their later work here. Not there. As did many others whose own societies collapsed or otherwise failed them.

In any case, I’m arguing a narrow argument: that a company like SpaceX could only have been founded, when it was founded, in America. Because of its certain characteristics that are an exception in the set of the world’s cultures. (One among many: its unique ability to assimilate and positively appropriate from immigrants.) That doesn’t mean it’s faultless; that’s a straw man.

[skissane]

The rhetoric of American exceptionalism annoys me a lot.

But occasionally I think it has some justification. And I think SpaceX is one of those rare cases. I just can't see a firm like SpaceX existing in any other country. The US offers a unique combination of easy access to capital, relatively low regulation, and high government funding for private space ventures, which I doubt you will find anywhere else.

[throw0101a]

> The US offers a unique combination of easy access to capital, relatively low regulation, and high government funding […]

Yes. And none of those things are historically unique.

They just happen to be true now in the US, partly because the US is the large economy in the world. But those things were true during different times in history in other countries.

Do you think it was a coïncidence that the Industrial Revolution kicked off in the UK, when they just happened to be one of the larger economies in the world at that time? Where did all the early research in electricity happened, in the US? Do you think Volta, Ampère, or Hertz are American names? Or the concept of interchange able parts (see the book The Perfectionists by Winchester)? Where was the internal combustion engine invented? The American space program was kickstarted by a bunch Germans.

Of course culture helps as well. Britain actually lost its initial lead in the chemical industry, even though things started there:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauveine

Fiddling with industrial chemicals was poo-pooed by the British intelligentsia, so the industry in Germany ended up surpassing Britain (e.g., BASF). See the book Mauve by Simon Garfield for a pretty good history on this:

* https://www.simongarfield.com/books/mauve/

It may be that the US has the go-go culture now that other countries used to have.

What is happening now in the US is a great thing, but to call "unique" is an insult to countless historical figures IMHO.

[skissane]

> And none of those things are historically unique.

I never said it was historically unique, if by that you mean without any historical parallel. Of course if you look at other industries and other historical periods, you will see other cases where a certain industry in a certain country has pulled ahead. And US leadership in space (or any other industry) is not guaranteed to last forever, and is in fact unlikely to last forever. But the US does provide a supportive environment for private space entrepreneurship which is unique in the world today.

The US has both some unique strengths and unique flaws. It is a world leader in both the space industry and in mass incarceration. The first is something it can be proud of, and the second is something of which it should be ashamed. Neither lead is guaranteed to be permanent, so in neither way is it unique in an absolute historical sense, but in both ways it is unique relative to the world of today.

> Do you think Volta, Ampère, or Hertz are American names?

I feel like you are arguing, not against anything I actually said, but things you are imagining I said. I'm not an American. I'm perfectly capable of being critical of the US (there is much I could say on that topic) but I also think it has its strengths and SpaceX is evidence of some of them.

[mrDmrTmrJ]

Historically, all three of the examples you site (Industrial revolution in the UK, Chemical manufacturing in Germany, and current commercial space industry in the US) are exceedingly rare*. The vast majority of both countries and time periods show a total absence of new technological development. Roman agricultural productivity was under 0.1% for the entirety of the empire. [1]

You're siting 0.1% historical outcomes when you look across all of the active civilizations across all of human history.

The conditions in the US currently, and Pax Americana more generally, are extremely rare in the history.

[1] Joel Moker's Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. I'd also highly recommend Moker's "The Gifts of Athena"

[throwthere]

Do you have some other country in mind that could support a nascent space company?

[CalChris]

The point wasn't just about SpaceX. "A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months". That semiconductor manufacturing industry is largely overseas and has been for awhile.

[throwthere]

I don't quite follow you here. Sure, lots of (non-Intel) semi-manufacturing happens outside the US in 2021. But when the industry built itself, a huge portion was in the... USA. Just like the space industry.

[dnautics]

and is, oddly enough, coming back to the US. There's a semiconductor fab opening in Austin courtesy of Samsung, and a semi fab in arizona courtesy of TSMC. I guess they are taking advantage of labor and technical expertise due to intel's chandler site?

[throw0101a]

> I guess they are taking advantage of labor and technical expertise due to intel's chandler site?

Or geopolitical concerns.

[dnautics]

Well yeah but there are 50 United States, they picked that one.

[hef19898]

Russia, the EU, China. Basically every nation or political entity with enough launches to jump start a new launch program. Out of these only the US went with a private new comer. The EU choose to develop a new Ariane launcher, while China went with national program.

[T-A]

https://tracxn.com/explore/NewSpace-Startups-in-China

[seventytwo]

It costs way more to be the innovator than the fast- follower or optimizer.

The government (US taxpayers) were the ones that did the initial work to level the raw earth and pave the road. SpaceX may be doing amazing work improving the process, but comparing the two as you’re doing is not appropriate.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> Russians did a much better job in recent decades

The multiple problems with Nauka suggest they've lost their edge and never learned the lessons from docking issues with Progress in the past.

[BatFastard]

What is Russia good at these days other than illegal industries like hacking? Their extraordinary level of corruption is leading to their demise.

[CapricornNoble]

Reliable, cost-effective main battle tanks, missile systems, and submarines. Consumer/commercial products? Ummm......I don't know of any either.

[jacquesm]

Destabilization of other countries on a shoestring budget.

[quartesixte]

For what it’s worth, NASA doesn’t directly build much. Even the Apollo program was a huge web of private vendors (many who still exist today).

SpaceX is/was just another entry on the long list of private contractors commissioned to build things for NASA, DoD, et al. But different here is that SpaceX worked at very very different speed than Aerojet Rocketdyne, ULA, and all the other old-space fossils. Still, those old contractors are valuable for other things — good welders, technicians, and engineers take many years to train and these old legacy corps provide a steady income stream to maintain a certain level of manufacturing readiness.

[throw0101a]

> For what it’s worth, NASA doesn’t directly build much. Even the Apollo program was a huge web of private vendors (many who still exist today).

All created because the government wanted something done and was willing to cut a check:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State

[emkoemko]

and yet it would be nice to still have the shuttle program... so far nothing is capable of EVA like the shuttle was so any repairs in space are still not possible, like they did in the past with the shuttle.

[nwallin]

The Space Shuttle costed $1.6 billion per launch. There's not a whole lot of things that would be cheaper to repair than to build a new one and launch it on a Falcon 9.

I agree that the Space Shuttle had a cool factor that nothing else does.

[nickik]

Repairs in space with humans never actually make sense. For the price of those missions you could have simply built a better sat in the first place.

[nickik]

> the Russians did a much better job in recent decades

The they didn't. What nonsense. They just keep flying the same old stuff as the quality gets worse and they don't do anything new.

[CTmystery]

You start by saying the argument is annoying but then you don't refute it in the slightest. Illustrating that the gov also invests heavily in gov agencies does not sever the productive link between gov investment and private industry