What NASA Chief Revealed about SpaceX's Importance Shocked FAA...

While SpaceX has increasingly become a target for fake news, guess who directly supported it in the media? Yeah, it's NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, and the way he recently outsmarted an Axios propaganda to defend SpaceX deserves more applause than ever. Honestly, Bill's behavior does not surprise me because over the past 20 years, SpaceX's contributions to NASA and American spaceflight are countless. So, of course, they deserve to be fully recognized, respected, and supported by the government instead of being harassed as they are now by bureaucracy and BS red tape. What NASA leader just revealed about SpaceX's importance shocked FAA. Find out everything in today's TechMap episode. But before we begin, let's subscribe to the channel to stay up to date with the latest space news. If you have followed the US rocketry for a while, certainly you are not strange to the extremely negative attitude of Bill Nelson against SpaceX and Elon Musk when he was still a senator. His saying, get your boy Elon in line, will be something that former NASA second-in-command Lori Garver can never forget. However, Nelson's stance has evolved since becoming NASA Administrator in 2021. At that time, SpaceX marked its name with a series of notable achievements. It launched its first cargo delivery to the ISS in 2012, and in 2014 it was co-awarded the NASA Commercial Crew Contract. And just six years later, or on May 30, 2020, SpaceX left NASA. Boeing, and any senator in awe since its Crew Dragon spacecraft, became the first private American spacecraft to launch astronauts from American soil. Meanwhile, Boeing Starliner was still taking a nap. Since then, the relationship between NASA and SpaceX has grown closer thanks to a series of large commercial contracts between them. Bill Nelson's trust in SpaceX is clearly manifested in a recent conversation with an Axios propagandist who tried to label Elon Musk a spreader of misinformation, repeatedly trying to get Nelson to disparage Musk as a distraction to NASA's mission. Do you worry about Elon Musk and the misinformation that he spreads that detracts or distracts from NASA and its mission? To respond, Bill praised Gwynne Shotwell's great leadership in helping SpaceX make great strides in the aerospace industry. After that, he also highlighted that. Well, they distract you, but they don't distract NASA. Elon Musk expressed his gratitude in the comment. Bill Nelson is awesome. It's no coincidence that NASA's Administrator has so much respect for SpaceX, even though SpaceX is the new kid on the block compared to legacy companies. At present, he has two astronauts he needs to get back to Earth, and he needs SpaceX to do it. Without SpaceX, things would be much worse, not only because Boeing's Calypso Starliner spacecraft can't be able to bring the astronauts home as planned, but also because NASA wouldn't have any backup means of rescue. This comes amid escalating political tensions between the United States and Russia, limiting their space cooperation efforts. Without SpaceX, Boeing, with its huge impact on Washington and lobbying efforts, would alone eat up the huge funding of Commercial Crew Contract. That was indeed the goal that some political groups were aiming for. Even though that plan never came to fruition, Boeing still received twice as much funding as SpaceX. However, what they returned to NASA is only a small part. It is a spacecraft with a traditional-style cockpit and tons of technical issues. More importantly, it cannot operate normally after a decade of development, and of course, it isn't yet certified for human spaceflight. Despite being an old model, Calypso's cost per seat is $90 million, significantly higher than Soyuz's $86 million. By contrast, with SpaceX, NASA has a much more reliable spacecraft, namely Dragon, which stands out by its state-of-the-art interior. The cockpit features modern touchscreens and few physical controls, providing an advanced interface for astronauts not unlike the minimalist interior of a Tesla. Accompanying the modern and smart design, SpaceX Dragon offers an attractive price tag, between $55 and $72 million cost per seat. Dragon has gone into operation for four years and has undergone many operational crewed missions under NASA's contract. In the future, it plans to complete most of the remaining human missions to the ISS before the space station retires in the 2030s. More importantly, next February, it is going to take charge of one special mission to rescue two NASA astronauts stranded on the ISS after a failed Starliner crew test flight. To safely send a Dragon into orbit, we should never forget the vital role of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, or SpaceX's workhorse rocket. What makes Falcon 9 so great? With a height of 70 meters and a payload capacity of 22,800 kilograms to low Earth orbit, the Falcon 9 has set the standard for a rocket to be used and reused. One of its significant features, its boosters, allows the rocket to return back to Earth after it launches. Especially with a very attractive cost per launch at around US $69.75 million and the high reliability, the workhorse rocket has nearly become an unbeatable competitor in the market. As a result, it is no surprise that SpaceX has been able to easily climb to a monopoly position in the rocket industry. According to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs in 2024, SpaceX is launching more objects into space than Russia and China combined. According to statistics for the first quarter of 2024 upmass, SpaceX launched 429,125 kilograms of spacecraft upmass in the first quarter. In this way, SpaceX has beaten everyone else domestically and internationally. In Elon's eyes, if the rest of the year goes well, SpaceX will launch close to 90% of all mass to orbit, China will be roughly 6% and rest of world approximately 4%. These projections underscore the dominant position of SpaceX in particular and the US in general in the global space launch market. Another Falcon family rocket that plays an important role in NASA's current and future missions is the Falcon Heavy. Falcon Heavy is one of the most powerful operational rockets, capable of lifting substantial payloads into various orbits. It can carry up to 63,800 kilograms to low Earth orbit and 26,700 kilograms to geostationary transfer orbit, making it suitable for a wide range of NASA missions. With its high payload capacity and reusability, Falcon Heavy provides NASA with flexible options for launching various types of missions, from planetary exploration to Earth observation. Indeed, many important NASA missions have been successfully carried out using this masculine rocket, including the Psyche mission, Europa Clipper mission, GOES-U satellite, Lunar Gateway components, and Roman Space Telescope. In addition, the ability to reuse boosters helps reduce launch costs, allowing NASA to allocate resources more effectively across its diverse range of projects. The success of SpaceX's two projects, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, not only benefited NASA, but also embarrassed them. NASA is well known for its scandalous project, namely Space Launch System, or SLS, called sarcastically Senate Launch System. The SLS has faced numerous delays and cost overruns during its long development. It began in 2011, but so far, the rocket just launched once time on 16 November 2022. Its second launch, or NASA's Artemis II, has been delayed to September 2025. The SLS program is also criticized for being unaffordable, threatening NASA's ambitious goal to establish a permanent, sustainable presence on and around the moon. By the end of the 2020s, NASA has spent $11.8 billion since it began developing SLS. An additional $11.2 billion was allocated in the White House's 2024 federal budget request for future work on SLS from 2024 through 2028. NASA plans to use these funds to develop core stages, rocket engines, and other components for SLS, ultimately to increase the vehicle's efficiency as well as the amount of cargo that can be delivered to the moon for Artemis. Nevertheless, fast forward to August 2024, the long concern continued when NASA's Office of Inspector General concluded that the expenditure to build a second mobile launch platform for SLS could end up costing NASA more than six times its original value. And they also find quality control problems with the main contractor Boeing working on SLS under the cost-plus contract. Therefore, it can be asserted that concerns about an unaffordable SLS program in the future are completely justified. While the problems with the SLS program are escalating, SpaceX has come up with a much better option for this scenario. Starship, as the world's largest and most powerful rocket, with an ideal price tag of under $10 million, Starship has caught the eye of NASA. The impressive features on Starship helped SpaceX beat two competitors, Blue Origin and Dynetics, and win a $2.9 billion contract to build Moon Lander for NASA's Artemis program. In NASA's Artemis III, the company's Starship human landing system will carry two astronauts from the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit to the moon's surface, serve as the crew's habitat for the duration of their one-week stay on the moon, and then launch them back to Orion. This will happen later in the decade if all goes to plan. Beyond lunar missions, Starship is also envisioned as a vehicle for future crewed missions to Mars and other deep space destinations. Its design allows for scalability and adaptability across various mission profiles, positioning it as a cornerstone of NASA's long-term exploration strategy. One of the significant objectives of Starship's development is to demonstrate cryogenic propellant transfer in space. This capability is crucial for long-duration missions, allowing Starship to refuel in orbit before heading to the moon or beyond. NASA is closely monitoring these tests to ensure stability and efficiency during propellant transfer. And that just about wraps it up for today's episode. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you next time.