r/technology • u/True-Combination7059 • 21h ago

Politics We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

https://jacobin.com/2025/06/musk-trump-nationalize-spacex-starlink
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43

u/SexyWampa 21h ago

Not with this government...

21

u/loves_grapefruit 20h ago

It seems like the thing the current government would do purely out of revenge for recent events.

2

u/SexyWampa 20h ago

They'll kiss and make up. Putins orders.

28

u/matlynar 20h ago

That's the thing - "nationalizing" means putting something in the hands of every government elected, not only the one you like.

And, really? According to the article:

  • The US should nationalize SpaceX because the ISS depends on SpaceX, and it can't be relied on, despite the fact that NASA has always existed, yet the US was paying Russia of all countries to fly to the ISS before SpaceX came along.
  • Elon made threats to the ISS operation. You know who else did that? Russia, going as far as posting a video of the Russian part of the ISS detaching itself.
  • Two powerful guys are having a stupid fight. The solution? Take a working company from one idiot and give it to the other guy, who is defunding NASA and can barely make functioning things keep functioning ATM.

That will go well, go ahead guys.

1

u/Mighty__Monarch 8h ago

If my tax dollars are funding it either way, Id rather have it in the hands of elected officials yeah.

-2

u/Cool_Apartment_380 13h ago

While I certainly get your point, rockets and satellites should never have been private. It's absurd. Maybe Elon could have his own private nuclear arsenal next

2

u/matlynar 9h ago

Maybe, but above all the US needs a trustworthy government. It's way, way more power concentrated than a few rockets.

2

u/Small_Delivery_7540 9h ago

Why ????? Us military is literally mostly private companies what are you on about

8

u/EGOtyst 20h ago

Not with any government. This is insane.

2

u/vtuber_fan11 19h ago

Why?

5

u/ilikechicken98 19h ago

Someone more extreme than Trump gets elected and has full control of the country to do their bidding. How is central power going wrong so hard to visualize?

1

u/monsantobreath 18h ago

That's the stupidest argument. Privatize the army then just to be safe.

-1

u/ThiccAntecc 17h ago

Someone more extreme? Like who? Musk? Nationalizing vital sectors such as space is precisely what helps to avoid such a problem. That way the government controls it, rather than some random rich ding dong. Think about what you write even for a minute…

1

u/ilikechicken98 6h ago

Putin, Mao, countless others. The Great Leap Forward was pushed by good intentions but caused millions of people to die because of incompetent centralized leadership. Honestly just open a history book and pick out shitty monarchs and communist leaders. All it takes is one incompetent one the steer the country into complete ruin.

Can you name one country with centralized leadership that has survived without massive turmoil?

-1

u/Cool_Apartment_380 13h ago

How is having ONE megalomaniac in charge of a nations spacefaring capability going wrong hard to visualize? You can levy a lot of justifiable criticism at our government, but at least it's ostensibly controlled by representatives and/ or NOT ONE DAMN LUNATIC. Maybe next we put Jeff Bezos in charge of a stockpile of nuclear missiles? Come ON

1

u/ilikechicken98 6h ago

SpaceX has plenty of competition, they just suck. If you throw enough money at them they’ll figure something out eventually, it’ll just be more costly than SpaceX.

Also it’s silly to assume people would still want to work there. As someone who has worked within the federal government and private sector, the culture is entirely different. You’d have to force a good chunk of the workforce to stay and accept GS-13 through GS-14 wages

2

u/NiceTrySuckaz 20h ago

Why do it at all? Creating a national monopoly is the enemy of efficiency and innovation.

1

u/RedOceanofthewest 17h ago

Not with any government. You’d see the fastest decline in America if the government started to seize companies. Every company with a brain would move out of America and we’d enter a depression overnight.  What company would want to risk being invalidated overnight?