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SpaceX vs. NASA: Speed-to-Market
NASA is clearly slower to market and to iterate than SpaceX.
By Atif Ansar and Bent Flyvbjerg
In terms of speed-to-market and iterative updates, SpaceX is on average nearly twice as fast as NASA. In terms of actual delivery time, SpaceX projects have a shorter actual duration from the decision to build to completion.†
On average SpaceX projects took 49.2 months (~4 years) whereas NASA’s took 82.3 months (~7 years). This difference is statistically significant .
As its platform has stabilized, SpaceX’s speed-to-market has been persistently trending lower towards 2 years:
In contrast, NASA’s speed-to-market is trending back upwards, towards 4 years and above
Since our estimates of actual delivery times exclude pre-planning prior to final investment decision or contractual close — SpaceX’s relative speed is in fact faster than our deliberately conservative calculation.
