[user_7832]

I think NASA also has higher public/pr standards they’re held to. A few spacex failures no one cares much about. If nasa fails a few times everyone (particularly more conservative leaning folk) starts complaining about their precious taxpayer money. Hence NASA likely sticks to project that are very low risk. I’m not saying this is good or bad per se, but public opinion is what it is.

It’s also a bit of damned if you do, damned if you don’t with nasa - play safe and people complain they’re not doing much, why are they funded. Play more risky and inevitably end up with a failure, get questioned why they’re wasting money. I don’t think I’ve seen much criticisms of when SpaceX or blue origin win govt grants for funding.

Again, this isn’t to say that enterprises don’t deserve govt support if they’re truly helping (lobby concerns aside). But it’s a multifaceted issue.

[thegrim22]

There's also a political angle since NASA represents the US. If anything goes wrong with a NASA project it's a massive propaganda opportunity for agitators and rival countries to mass spam the internet about how horrible America has become, what a laughing stock, etc., etc., doing everything they can to push their anti-US propaganda as hard as they can. There's more repercussions for NASA to fail at something than a private company.

[inglor_cz]

This is an interesting angle that I haven't thought of.

NASA projects carry a lot more gravitas than "move fast and break things" Musk projects. If something explodes at SpaceX, as long as people aren't hurt, no one really cares. People who dislike Musk will simply point at the debris and say: "We told you he's an idiot" and people who like him will rush to his defense, but the standing of the US as a whole isn't on the line.

[alemanek]

I think it is more that SpaceX has a fail fast engineering culture and was clear about that from the start. I mean they made a blooper real “How not to land an orbital rocket booster”.

Also SpaceX’s launch stream production quality and PR has been surprisingly good from the start as well.

[Xirgil]

SpaceX absolutely gets a lot of criticism. There's people shouting to nationalize it for crying out loud.