NASA v. SpaceX
An interesting comparison between SpaceX and NASA has been made by @sam on X. He is trying to make a point that SpaceX has created marvelous stuff like Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Starship, Dragon etc. at a fraction of the cost at which NASA functions.
I am not attesting to the exact figures put forth by him but many of these figures are readily available on the internet and could be verified easily. It seems that NASA has so far spent $450 billion since 2002 on its space endeavors whereas SpaceX has roughly spent $10 billion so far.
The headcount comparison between NASA and SpaceX is an eye-opener. What NASA pays its bureaucrats and civil servants cumulatively is at least four times ($333k v. $1470k) more than what it pays to its engineers and full workforce (the real people responsible for running the space program).
Cut Bureaucracy
At this point, it is important to ask whether we really need bureaucrats in the space program or even in other scientific endeavors. Bureaucrats have become an epitome of sluggishness, lethargy and maladministration world over. However, the fear surrounding the bureaucrats is so much that nobody dares to think about removing them.
Why not have specialists everywhere, why have bureaucracy at all? A few centuries ago, we did not have experts in every field and that is why the world needed generalists to look after things. These generalists were smart people who knew the basics of most of the things and could oversee any kind of work. But generalists are no substitutes for specialists. Now that we have so many talented people in the world, why do we want to be stuck with bureaucracy?
Management and administration are two things that work best when they are invisible in nature. Making reports, attending useless meetings, doing things for the sake of appeasing superiors, trying to act nice even when you know your time is getting wasted, participating in utterly useless celebrations etc. are some things that have become part of the current bureaucratic office culture all over the world. It is pretty much same everywhere, only the intensity and flavor change from place to place.
In many countries, bureaucrats once appointed are very hard to remove and serve for a very long time. The appraisals and reviews conducted of bureaucrats are conducted by themselves only. Thus, it is very hard to adjudge whether a bureaucrat is actually efficient. I am not saying all bureaucrats are doing a terrible job. There are many who are not only innovative but also extremely hardworking. But I am afraid that their numbers are few.
Though D.O.G.E., an initiative of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has uncovered a tremendous amount of bureaucratic waste, yet there is a backlash against this D.O.G.E. system. The problem is that bureaucracy becomes complacent in work and when anybody tries to make them active, they start finding fault in that system or person and innocent gullible people fall for such narratives.
Concluding Remarks
My own view is that the only way to get rid of bureaucracy is to adopt a new system of government recruitment where bureaucrats are replaced by specialists. If there is a water canal being constructed, instead of appointing a government bureaucrat as the head of that project, a scientist or an engineer who actually knows the nitty-gritty of water canals should be at the helm.
Hopefully, with the advent of AI and technology, things will improve in the long run. I will continue writing my thoughts on the inefficiency of bureaucracy. You can read my thoughts on D.O.G.E. here. If you like my writing, please subscribe here and on X.