Moving the Goalposts

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post directed at Mark Whittington that said:

There is no double standard at work here. SpaceX used its own money for the Falcon-1 tests. NASA is using taxpayers' money for the obviously flawed-from-before-starting Ares. The difference is not subtle.

Mark Whittington replied that

Technically, he is correct that SpaceX used private money for Falcon 1 tests. But it also is using public money to develop the Falcon 9/Dragon launch system. So, using Robot Guy's logic, one ought to gove SpaceX the same benefit of a doubt--or lack there of--as NASA.

Perhaps I ought to have included more of Mark Whittington's original statement, as based on his reply one might think I was making an apples-to-oranges comparison. Here's the full paragraph from Whittington's original post:

Even in the commercial area, technical problems crop up. SpaceX's Falcon 1 have had two launch failures, for example. SpaceX's engineers have ascertained the causes of these failures and are fixing them. It is noted that no one who is having Internet vapors over the Ares is having the same over the Falcon. There seems to be, perhaps because of a double standard, more of an understanding that problems will occur in rocket development in the private sector than at NASA.

Clearly Mark was comparing SpaceX's (self funded) Falcon 1 launches to NASA's (taxpayer funded) work on Ares. He was not referring to the Falcon 9/Dragon launch system (and thus, neither was I), which admittedly is being partially funded by NASA and thus by taxpayers. He was referring to Falcon 1.

So yes, by all means, let us hold SpaceX to the same standard as NASA - or rather, let us hold NASA to the same standard as SpaceX. Let NASA pay for its mistakes out of its own pocket without dinging the taxpayers for its failures... what's that? NASA doesn't have money of its own? Then perhaps we should hold NASA to the same standards to which NASA holds Rocketplane/Kistler.

Whittington goes on to say:

...the bald, unsupported statement "obviously flawed from the start Ares" (I wish someone would offer some actual evidence to support that)

I had left the support for that statement out of my original post because I thought it was so obvious that further explanation was unnecessary. One could look at the Aviation Week article discussing the thrust oscillation problems, which are going to happen with any solid rocket motor first stage. One could point to the weight problems and schedule slippage. One could keep going, but I suspect that anyone who has been following NASA closely over the last four years would have to know about the problems with Ares/Orion. Any other assumption beggars belief.