Maybe not during Mercury, but definitely during the 70s all the technology was there to build a cheap, reusable rocket and capsule.
The dream was that the shuttle could be that system, but it did not turn out that way. And giving in to the 'sunk cost fallacy' they supported the shuttle for the next 40 years.
Arguably you could say we are 50 years behind where we should be. Unfortunately driving down costs is probably the hardest thing for any government organization to do. Given that there is no competition, no shareholders, no profit motive etc..
Didn't Space X also benefit from NASA launch facilities? I imagine their payroll also includes quite a few NASA trained people too. They certainly aren't doing rocket science from scratch or in a vacuum.
Not too say this isn't a big deal. Just that it's not all Elon and his wunderkind.
Yeah of course, SpaceX would be stupid to not use the resources NASA will make available for them. Honestly, NASA would probably much rather be out of the business of building rockets, so they can focus on the next generation of space experiments. The less money NASA has to spend on hauling stuff into space, the more they can spend on what they put up there.
> NASA would probably much rather be out of the business of building rockets
NASA has never been in the business of building tickets. Mercury went up on Army's Redstone, Gemini on Air Force Titan. Routine launches are on ICBM-derived Atlas and Titan.
Boeing and Douglas built Saturn V, Rockwell built the shuttle orbiter.
SpaceX leases the launch pad and Eastern Range, but those are paid either on a yearly basis, or per use. The NASA/DoD personnel that support the launch are getting paid whether there's a launch or not, because they're needed for any launch from the Cape.
The dream was that the shuttle could be that system, but it did not turn out that way. And giving in to the 'sunk cost fallacy' they supported the shuttle for the next 40 years.
Arguably you could say we are 50 years behind where we should be. Unfortunately driving down costs is probably the hardest thing for any government organization to do. Given that there is no competition, no shareholders, no profit motive etc..