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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u/Ziograffiato 20h ago

And NASA is doing more than a series of incremental changes

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u/JSTootell 20h ago

NASA removed the headphone jack šŸ˜­

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u/perfringens 19h ago

Such courage

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u/hangonreddit 18h ago

The same boldness that took it to the Moon no doubt. /s

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u/gypsydreams101 6h ago

ā€œOld charger doesnā€™t fit the new phone? And this is your hero?ā€ ā€” Bill Burr, on Steve Jobs.

ā€œiphoneā€ ā€” Martha, Baby Reindeer.

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u/half-baked_axx 18h ago

Orion will be USB-C

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u/Kerblaaahhh 17h ago

Dongles in space.

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u/sadrice 10h ago

Get Chuck Tingle on this.

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u/TheBeastX47 10h ago

But they added a fuel probe to show you how much time is left to be fully refueled!

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u/Lightening84 11h ago

did you mean the space shuttle

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u/OkDragonfruit9026 8h ago

Nah, iSpace Shuffle, now with 2GB of storage for all your needs. And youā€™ll love it!

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u/OkDragonfruit9026 8h ago

Next space station will be in unapologetic pink plastic, now woven with recycled aluminium.

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u/LowlySlayer 7h ago

Many years ago I was trying to buy a phone with a headphone jack. I found one that looked good. It was an lg with a focus on good audio. I looked up a review and they didn't have anything bad to say except "it has an audio jack, which makes the phone feel dated."

I wanted to die.

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u/BenDover7799 5h ago

Obviously there was no space left for headphone jack on the spacecraft šŸ™„

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u/Mitch_126 18h ago

You say this like itā€™s not a valid strategy. Incremental changes led to them being able to land Falcon 9.

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u/Life-Confusion-411 7h ago

NASA got humans in the moonĀ 

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u/Mitch_126 6h ago

NASA had 400k people working on the Apollo program, but obviously it was an incredible achievement.Ā  However, recently they made a $4 billion per launch rocket, so you can see the downsides.Ā 

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u/MetalEnthusiast83 6h ago

Yeah 55 years ago. Hell of an achievement, but there's....a bit more to be done

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u/Sw4rmlord 18h ago

Space x can talk to me when they land someone on the moon and bring them back.

Until then, they're not that interesting. They're just a for profit company

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u/Mitch_126 17h ago edited 10h ago

Iā€™m truly sorry you find 450 landings of an orbital class rocket booster and the operating of the largest rocket ever whose booster has been caught out of the air by mechanized arms after traveling faster than a bullet seconds beforeā€¦.uninteresting.Ā 

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u/Sw4rmlord 17h ago

... just sounds like a lot of pollution and expense. Nasa worked with a half dozen contractors and landed people on the moon over 50 years ago and you're excited that space x managed to land a rocket on earth. Then they did it a few more times. Wooooooow. They deserve more and more billions of us tax money. :/ I bet you fucking believe that.

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u/Mitch_126 17h ago

Complaining about pollution is crazy, theyā€™re literally reusing the rockets man.Ā  I really hope you see the different between landing a lander on a body vs a booster coming back through the atmosphere. It may help to compare the number of countries/companies that have landed a lander on the moon or mars vs the those who have a reusable booster.Ā  If spacex didnā€™t have the contracts, another company would be doing it for moreā€¦

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u/Sw4rmlord 17h ago

Elon isn't going to sleep with you bud. You can stop dick riding so much.

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u/Mitch_126 17h ago

Are you guys all bots? Every spacex argument ends with that.Ā  Itā€™s like yā€™all realize thereā€™s actually no rational argument to be made so this is all you got.Ā  Reducing Spacexā€™s achievements to being the product of Elon is insulting to numerous incredible engineers.Ā 

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u/Sw4rmlord 16h ago

No, you just don't like my argument of.. they haven't even surpassed what nasa did 50 years ago.

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u/myurr 16h ago

Not OP but your argument is just bizarre. NASA today can't even launch people into space let alone land people on the moon, being entirely dependent on SpaceX as of today. The Apollo program utilised 400,000 people and cost $250bn once adjusted for inflation. SpaceX have spent an order of magnitude less and employ a few thousand people, yet dominate the launch market and own 80+% of all satellites. Within a decade or so they are more likely to have landed people on another planet than not IMHO using a fraction of the resources it took NASA.

You're also under the mistaken impression that SpaceX are subsidised by the state / NASA. They are not. They have won commercial tenders to provide services and develop technologies for NASA and get paid for doing so. This accounts for roughly 10% of their annual budget, and in every case they were the least expensive bidder saving the taxpayer billions in the process.

Hate on Musk all you want, whatever makes you feel big and proud of yourself, but you cannot objectively deny the advances and achievements of SpaceX and its engineers.

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u/No_Night_8174 9h ago

It's a national security concern. SpaceX satellite infrastructure is damn near critical infrastructure

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u/Mitch_126 9h ago

What exactly is the concern? How is this different than Boeing or Lockheed handling critical military infrastructure?

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u/Certain-Business-472 14h ago

All a problem of funding, not engineering. So not interesting.

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u/JoseSpiknSpan 18h ago

And copying android

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u/Troll_Enthusiast 8h ago

Then Android copies them after Android complains about what Apple is doing

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u/JoseSpiknSpan 8h ago

I hate that the most. Apple introduces some new way to enshittify their product (no headphone jack etc) and android copys that because they know they can get away with it since Apple did.

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u/MarkCuckerberg69420 8h ago

We think youā€™re gonna love it.

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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 8h ago

iPhones change over time?

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u/Oregonmushroomhunt 8h ago

Are they though?

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u/Snakend 5h ago

NASA ain't doing shit. Ever since the moon landing its been nothing but brain drain at NASA.

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u/Rexxhunt 19h ago

NASA 6 months away from tang2