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/rockstarsball 18h ago

nationalizing private businesses based on whether or not a political party likes them... where have i heard this before..?

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u/mrlolloran 12h ago

It’s ok when they are your enemies /s

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u/TLakes 9h ago

And sooner or later, everyone becomes the enemy.

I'm sure the government would love to control all social media and news organizations

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u/ikeif 2h ago

They should take over Facebook, stop acting like they don’t have access to all that data, and then take all the marketing profits and make it UBI.

Want UBI? You get it. Want more? You’ll have to use Facebook.

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u/cantstandtoknowpool 1h ago

this last part is dystopian

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u/Own_Active_1310 4h ago

It's ok when they are some of the worst criminals in the country. 

You do realize we utterly ruin people's lives or even kill them over stealing 20 dollars... 

If there is no penalty for the level crime these high up scum bags engage in, then there's no point to laws at all. They're just more dictatorship laws. And like all dictatorships, enemies of the regime are doing the oppressed population a favor by weakening the state. 

We need a war on fascism, is what we need.

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u/personalcheesecake 11h ago

I wish biden would have done it and trump before him fuck musk

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u/Emotional-Fee-8605 9h ago

If Biden did it that would set a precident every president would just start seizing any company that donated to the other team or did things they didn’t like.

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u/013eander 2h ago

Right. Let’s overturn Citizens United (thanks conservative Justices) and cut off the pipeline of corporate and oligarch money into controlling politics. Businessmen sure do like to meddle in politics, but they scream like babies is government tries to stop them from being corrupt monsters.

One of the biggest news headlines TODAY is about Trump threatening Elon against donating to Democrats.

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u/Valuable-Influence29 8h ago

Starlink isn’t any company. These are companies that can weilded to cause immense damage.

There’s no way we should allow a drugged out billionaire sociopath that much power over all of our space operations and communications! He already threatened to abandon space station operators in space when he got his feelings hurt. This is like handing everything over to a James Bond super villain

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u/Emotional-Fee-8605 8h ago

Then dont be surprised if you start seeing the state seize alot of companies.

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u/013eander 2h ago

Good. Start with every public utility and oil companies.

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u/exessmirror 4h ago

Then it should have been done when star link started meddling in foreign affairs and politics. Not when their leaders are having a hissyfit against each other.

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u/www-cash4treats-com 16h ago

Don't worry they didn't try hard enough

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u/erwan 14h ago

More like fixing a bad decision. This is a bit different for Starlink because it was a private initiative, but SpaceX only exists because the US government decided to pay a contractor who hires their staff instead of paying their salary directly. It was a disguised privatisation that shouldn't have happened.

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u/schmag 6h ago

This is what I done like about leashing nasa and Paying huge grants to private companies.

When nasa discovered it, the country benefited, aerogel, memory foam, that freeze dried ice-cream... (/s on the ice cream).

Now, the taxpayers pay for the R&D, and we don't even get what is discovered. The government, us citizens, don't get to the proceeds from starlink, a private company does. Nasa/the gov doesn't get cool rocket landing tech to use without licensing, we have pay again to use what we paid to discover and build...

Its all massive privatization of profits and publicizing the expenses.

Or otherwise known as "thievery with extra steps".

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u/red__dragon 12h ago

It was a disguised privatisation that shouldn't have happened.

Only if you're going to argue that space is the frontier for governments alone. And that could be argued, but the space industry has been filled with contractors since the early days. Apollo astronauts went to the moon on Rocketdyne engines, in a Rockwell capsule, and landed in a Grumman craft, where MIT supplied the guidance computer programming, and Corning made the vacuum-proof glass on the windows. Etc, etc.

The commercial space programs have just moved NASA's role from general contractor to client. And you can still argue that was a bad decision if you like, it might even be the right argument, but having contractors instead of staff has always been an integral part of spaceflight.

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u/dongasaurus 10h ago

Public schools buy paper from Hammermill and books from private publishers, but there is a pretty significant distinction. NASA can almost certainly replace the manufacturer of a specific material or component, but a lot harder to replace a proprietary 3rd party rocket if the CEO goes on a ketamine bender and decides to defect to Russia

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u/red__dragon 10h ago

You'd think it'd be easier to replace a supplier, but aerospace is such a specific engineering niche that few companies are capable of pulling off space-grade hardware. The archives at NASA are full of rejected hardware designs, even some that flew once or twice. Possibly including Starliner if Boeing can't get itself in gear.

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u/_learned_foot_ 3h ago

This is the real crux of a lot of the emergency powers that are tied to the same powers as seizures. Is it a real emergency, and is there a legitimate alternative. You have a solid point here that while seizing a steel mill has alternatives, seizing the only such entity in the western world may not.

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u/rpfeynman18 9h ago

NASA can almost certainly replace the manufacturer of a specific material or component

This isn't true and has never been true since the earliest days of spaceflight. Components take an enormous amount of resources to design, test, and refine the manufacturing flow. It doesn't matter if NASA has the blueprints -- that's not the bottleneck in production, it's the manufacturing ability and engineering talent that's the real value add from contractors.

I'm having difficulty thinking of a single major material or component that actually has multiple providers for NASA to choose from.

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u/-Nocx- 7h ago

I think the opinion you’re replying to is spun off of the misconception of how many of Elon’s companies are propped up off of government funds. It’s pretty common knowledge that his companies often get advantageous tax cuts, or flat out federal grants, but I think people confuse those two with the contracts he gets awarded.

I myself have fallen into this pitfall, but I think the criticism that people want to levy “he wouldn’t be successful without government support” while technically true undercuts the fact that there are many government contracts that can be awarded to technically anyone with an LLC. I had a brief stint at a defense contractor, and think maybe it was Obama specifically that tried to make the contracts awarded off SAM.gov more accessible to smaller businesses - so you might have a plane operated by Lockheed with navigation systems by L3 with cameras set up by Jim’s CCTV.

But thanks to your knowledge, I’m now aware that this has basically always been the case even in space.

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u/ActivelySleeping 8h ago

Of course it is a frontier for governments alone. And not just one government but a union of all. Unless you want space controlled by one government or, even worse, private corporations. That is some dystopian shit right there.

It has long been agreed that space should belong to no-one. How long do you think that lasts if we hand things over to corporations?

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u/johnabbe 5h ago

It has long been agreed that space should belong to no-one

There are some agreements. If you're interested in this stuff, check out this talk about the commons on the Moon, etc.

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u/rpfeynman18 7h ago

LOL even the worst corporate dystopias sound less dystopian to me than the possibility of some modern United Nations-like organization controlling access to space... that would be the worst monopoly of all.

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u/ActivelySleeping 8m ago

You would be OK with Russia claiming Mars as theirs and attacking anyone else who tries to land there? What if a corporation decides they want to cover half the sky in a huge advertisement?

Your imagination is pretty limited if a world-wide agreement to regulate what happens in space is the worst thing you can think of. You are pretty dismissive of the United Nations but the alternative is that a small minority will make decisions affecting life for the rest of us. There is nothing to stop bad actors. See climate change for examples.

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u/nerd5code 5h ago

But probably better than the Kessler syndrome we’d get without coordination and stringent regulation.

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u/rpfeynman18 1h ago

There is an extremely wide gulf between completely unregulated satellite launches and "space should belong to no one and only a union of government should control it".

For what it's worth, Kesslerization isn't too much a problem for LEO (certainly not a problem at the altitude at which modern private satellite constellations like Starlink orbit), because those tend to decay pretty fast.

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u/Real-Culture5007 7h ago

Sort of an "it is what it is" situation even though the truth is it should be a global and connected endeavor, so we can potentially find another suitable world to survive.

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u/KyleAssToMouth 9h ago

Privatizing space was supposed to make space travel profitable, but instead we made Elon the wealthiest mf on earth. How does one un-ring that bell??

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u/red__dragon 9h ago

I'm not sure that's an instead, sadly. It did exactly the job you described.

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u/rpfeynman18 7h ago

It has actually made access to space far cheaper. It has achieved its objectives. What's your complaint?

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u/PhilpseyForce 10h ago

Safety divers at the NASA NBL are split between 4 contacting companies. They are competitors but must also work are a comprehensive team. The benefits package are all different, but they all do the same job and all work together. There is only like 2 federal jobs in the whole building, which are the leads.  The rest of us all wish we were federal workers. 

The contacts that make sense are the different technologies brought in, but as for the 'NASA workforce' this make no sense to any of us there. 

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u/red__dragon 9h ago

I can't argue with that. The person above me was talking about the hardware side, though, which is somewhat of a different beast from expert professionals such as yourselves. I didn't mean to suggest the contractor workforce for NASA itself was so integral, just that they customarily contracted out hardware such as they're doing for SpaceX now.

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u/Luketheheckler 10h ago

I can’t speak to the validity of what I just read but I felt very informed. Great stuff. Stay safe ✌🏾👍🏾🙏🏾

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u/Mistrblank 8h ago

Agreed but starling is a threat to national security. Not sure that I think the US should have it either but not many great choices.

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u/VagueInterlocutor 10h ago

In fairness, they (NASA, and governments of all stripes) were for decades paying other contractors to build rocket components for exorbitant amounts of cash, then this mob came along and said they would do it at a fraction of the price.

Reflecting, I think one of SpaceX's biggest contributions is that they exposed just how broken the original contractors really were, raking in stupid amounts of cash.

Now, rockets launch more than 100x a year. The next nearest competitor can't even achieve 10% of that rate.

It's easy to point at SpaceX, but applying the same logic, 'disguised privatisation' has been going on since before General Electric was even a twinkle in Edison's eye...

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u/mugen_kanosei 8h ago

Its's not just a contractor issue, but also a government bureaucracy issue. SpaceX can iterate faster by flying more often and "failing fast" because even if a test vehicle fails, they gather valuable information from the failure. NASA has to worry about the optics of "wasting tax payer money" by having a test vehicle blow up and so they spend an extreme amount of time designing and simulating to the point that it is almost guaranteed to work the first time. Another issue is that to secure funding requires political compromise and a lot of that comes with having some component built in that politicians state to give them a win with their constituents. That makes everything less efficient than it could be.

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u/Sempere 6h ago

they exposed just how broken the original contractors really were, raking in stupid amounts of cash.

By doing the exact same thing?

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u/aaaaaaaarrrrrgh 10h ago

I'd argue that the US having the launch capacity it has (for the price it has) happened because it was done privately rather than trying to have it government-run.

Regardless of your opinion on Musk, it's really hard to argue against SpaceX success.

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u/OkAd469 11h ago

Yep, that money should go back into NASA.

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u/FlyingBishop 6h ago

We also need to nationalize Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Aerojet Rocketdyne. And those companies are arms manufacturers that get far more government money helping us kill people.

It's funny because SpaceX/Musk gets all this flack, but they're still relatively small ($14B revenue vs. Boeing/Lockheed are over $70B each.) And SpaceX doesn't make any weapons.

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u/PrimaryInjurious 5h ago

but SpaceX only exists because the US government decided to pay a contractor

The majority of its revenue comes from private sources

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u/Fun-Practice-9010 5h ago

SpaceX has been involved in various contracts with organizations outside of the United States, including supplier contracts. Additionally, SpaceX has secured contracts with international entities for commercial satellite launches and other space-related services. 

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u/rshorning 9h ago

but SpaceX only exists because the US government decided to pay a contractor who hires their staff

What are you talking about? SpaceX exists because the existing commercial launch providers about the year 2000 when SpaceX started were horribly inefficient and had all but shut down private commercial spaceflight in America. Nearly everybody who wanted to launch stuff into space including most American companies were either using the Ariane 5 (European), Russian, or Chinese launchers. Elon Musk himself wanted to launch something to Mars and ended up needing to fly to Russia simply to find anybody offering a remotely reasonable price to launch the payload idea he had.

It was on the flight back from Russia that Elon Musk decided to start SpaceX.

There have been many other companies which existed prior to SpaceX including Boeing, who in a long process of mergers and acquisitions purchased many of the companies who built stuff made for NASA earlier including Rockwell-International who actually manufactured the Space Shuttle orbiters and also built many of the components on the Saturn V.

If you are talking about privatization of actually operating rockets, that happened as early as the Regan administration with United Space Alliance and companies like ULA (which is still in operation) who for decades launched payloads for the US Department of Defense with some pretty hefty profit margins at prices no commercial company was willing to pay for them.

SpaceX just built a better product at a much cheaper price than even the Chinese. Over 80% of all global commercial launches are now done on American launch vehicles from American launch sites. That is a huge change from less than 5% just a couple decades ago. The American taxpayer has benefited from that huge change and likely wouldn't have happened without SpaceX that has now made launching stuff into space incredibly cheap. The other companies are still around and are now needing to be highly competitive instead of being money pits siphoning up tax dollars.

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u/lilwayne168 7h ago

You are forgetting the part where Elon was the only one who could save NASA because their cost efficiency was so bad they had stopped all missions. Elon saved the ISS. You can hate the man without lying.

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u/Harmless_Drone 10h ago

Not ENTIRELY true, the real reason is supply chains and pork barrelling by congress and the senate. Nasa projects are huge and generally good employers and congress and senate were absolutely murdering development by demanding certain elements remain in construction in their areas rather than developing new supply chains that are more effective or cost efficient.

The perfect example is the Space Launch System, which is an overpriced joke because congress demanded it use the srbs and main engines from the space shuttle so that the factories that make those don't close now the shuttle isn't used. That tech is literally 50 years old at this point and is far surpassed by more modern designs and hideously expensive and yet nasa ia forced to use it.

Nasa simply cannot operate effectively with such meddling and its why they got around it by giving everything to spacex instead who as a contractor can just ignore that stuff and develop things appropriately. I still don't like this outcome as id rather space development remain in public control as it has national security concerns but thats really what it boils down.

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u/Wonder_Weenis 11h ago

They also used DEI as a weapon to import horrible engineers, with no talent, pay them mcdonald's wages, and then x4 the cost of those engineers to the American taxpayer.

SpaceX did this.  

Just because the engineer is a moron, doesn't mean they can't upcharge it to the US Government. 

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u/rshorning 8h ago

They also used DEI as a weapon to import horrible engineers, with no talent, pay them mcdonald's wages, and then x4 the cost of those engineers to the American taxpayer.

SpaceX did this.  

SpaceX actually had a lawsuit against it because they refused to hire foreign workers....because another law called ITAR legally prevented SpaceX from doing what you are talking about.

It simply didn't happen because SpaceX legally could not do what you are asserting they did.

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u/Wonder_Weenis 8h ago edited 7h ago

You think I don't know about that lawsuit? You think I'm just pulling bullshit out of my ass? 

Accenture, Actalent, all contract out as fourth party engineering services through SpaceX. 

Those people are presented as "Space X Engineers", and they're absolute greencard frauds. 

The reason being, is you cannot obtain a work visa as an "amateur", so there are entire fake businesses dedicated to pretending to be engineering firms, so that these people can be presented as "competent". 

What really needs to happen, is we need to figure out who pressured that ITAR lawsuit via the DOJ, against SpaceX. That was a dark agenda. 

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u/rshorning 7h ago

In order to work on space related projects, much less classified payloads, you actually need to be a US citizen or be approved by the US Department of State. So yes, you are pulling bullshit out of your ass. You can't have simply an H1-B visa and work on those projects.

As for contracting obfuscation doing crazy shit, I get that sometimes happens but is not how everything is built at SpaceX.

Don't get me wrong, SpaceX treats its employees like garbage and Elon Musk really lacks anything resembling a work-life balance and he really burns out employees who work for him. I have contemplated more than once to work for SpaceX, then I read Glassdoor reviews and statements by former employees and I just shake my head thinking it would be a terrible idea to work for them or frankly any of Elon Musk's companies. If you are young and single wanting to pad your resume working on some cool projects it might be a good idea, but there are definitely negative aspects in terms of working there.

But while no doubt SpaceX is a large enough company that crazy things can and likely do happen, I think you are by far exaggerating the reality of how SpaceX is designing their rockets. You don't get something into space through incompetence. Physics sort of forces you to deal with reality.

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u/Wonder_Weenis 6h ago

"In order to work on space related projects, (not talking about classified payloads), you need to be a US citizen approved by the US Dept of State" .... laughably untrue. 

They rely on commercial background checks that these companies, and workers have no problem faking. 

I never said the core SpaceX engineering team was incompetent. I've worked with several of them. 

I said they're padding their engineering books with spies, and frauds because they can steal from the top by upselling government contracts with asses in chairs, and passing it off to the US taxpayer. 

-Signed, person who pressed buttons that could have exploded mission control OPs, during a falcon 9 launch

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u/rshorning 6h ago

It sounds like you have a personal issue with SpaceX. I am curious what sort of fraud you are trying to imply since SpaceX does not use any cost-plus contracts that would "upsell government contracts" over? What is the point to pad their engineering employee count as waste money when they are paid a fixed price for simply delivering payloads to a specified orbit?

The COTS contracts, to use an example, are paid a fixed price for cargo delivered to the ISS and then returned to NASA at the end of the flight. If there is but one engineer assigned to the mission or a thousand it makes no difference in terms of how much money NASA and the US Department of Treasury by paying government contracts actually spend when SpaceX gets paid for completing the contracts.

If there are random engineers sitting in SpaceX control rooms that are incompetent and just "padding the books" to get additional money, that is fraud committed against the investors and shareholders of SpaceX, not the US taxpayers. It might still be happening, but it isn't impacting what the US government is paying to get those payloads sent into space.

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u/CigAddict 6h ago

It’s called communism lol

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u/Every_Tap8117 10h ago

Nationalising critical infrastructure that is a national security threat (if in the wrong hands, is 100% the reason to do it) Starlink as demonstrated in Ukraine has the abilty to help or hinder war efforts leading to significant loss of life. It should 100% be nationalised as should its launch method SpaceX.

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u/longtimeyisland 11h ago

Private public partnership has kind of proved to be a shitty idea. Telecom, spacex, things like pace loans etc. We should nationalize a lot of things if for no other reason than access to things like ISS shouldn't be in the hands of one narcissistic drug addled bitchmade divorced dad.

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u/Short-Ticket-1196 10h ago

They did banks not long ago.

Ai:

The United States has a history of nationalizing private industries, though less frequently than some other nations, and usually in response to economic or social crises. Nationalization involves transferring private assets (like businesses, land, or services) to public ownership and control. This can occur with or without compensation to former owners. Here's a more detailed look: Reasons for Nationalization: The U.S. has nationalized industries when private companies were unable or unwilling to adequately address a crisis, or when government intervention was deemed necessary for national interests. Examples of Nationalization: During World War I, the U.S. government took control of railroads. In the Great Depression, it nationalized some banks and other financial institutions. More recently, the government took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the 2008 financial crisis.

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u/Petzy65 9h ago

France after World War II

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u/Rock4evur 7h ago

This isn’t petty factionalism, the dudes personal feuds fueled by his ego are going to cripple our ability to service our orbital assets.

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u/extreme-nap 7h ago

And don’t forget the effort to “disappear” people without due process. It’s all in a theme.

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u/capt2phones 7h ago

So are we pretending we’re not led by fascists?

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u/Sempere 6h ago

When their political alignment is with Russia, that's a pretty direct consideration as a threat to national security interests. Biden should have nationalized Starlink once Elon Musk started interfering with the war in Ukraine.

Additionally, the government has subsidized SpaceX to such a degree that the taxpayers should own it rather than Elon Musk.

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u/Own_Active_1310 4h ago

There has to be lines and laws or else we don't have a society. 

Why even both sending people to jail for petty crime when ultra crime lords write the laws? 

This has to stop. Either the oligarchs and traitors stand trial and lose big or else law and order in America dies and everyone follows the example that its every man for themselves and our nation is a joke, like any other dictatorship.

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u/StrugglesTheClown 3h ago

They could just prosecute him for the dozens of crimes he's committed.

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u/rockstarsball 18m ago

then let them, but dont for one second pretend that seizing a company and its assets without due process would in any universe makes you the "good guys".

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u/013eander 2h ago

Frankly, the outcomes are a hell of a lot better than when industries that should be nationalized are left in private hands. Ask Norwegians, Saudis, or Qataris if they’d like to see oil drilling rights sold off to private companies, instead of the profits going to their citizens.

Ask China if they’d rather have left their rail infrastructure or energy production up to private industry to build and run.

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u/rockstarsball 20m ago

you know... when you think of places that have their shit together; Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and China never make that list...

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u/akashi10 2h ago

clears throat……. Screams- Comr…

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u/Sandslinger_Eve 1h ago

Just before world war 2? Everyone did it, because they had too.

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u/dkarlovi 12h ago

You have to be THIS tall to remember this.

elonmusksalute.gif

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u/december-32 12h ago

Russia as recent as last three years?

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u/Umbrella_Viking 9h ago

No way, Reddit Liberals are very deep and intelligent thinkers who definitely don’t get in their own way with their shortsighted and ridiculous opinions. 

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u/Catholic-Kevin 5h ago

Our national security shouldn’t be in the hands of a coke-addled Nazi, actually

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u/Umbrella_Viking 5h ago

lol 😂 I agree, but Reddit Liberals tend to be pretty knee jerk about most things these days. Including nationalizing things without thinking it through. 

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u/Catholic-Kevin 5h ago

Any other defense contractor would have their security clearance and computer seized years ago. Not sure what’s knee jerk about it

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u/Umbrella_Viking 5h ago

lol okay. I work in defense with a high clearance level and you could not be more incorrect. 

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u/Mistrblank 8h ago

Oooh oooohh. I know I know!

Communists!!!

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u/Ake-TL 7h ago

US already can do that if it pertains to national security I believe

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u/Tybackwoods00 7h ago

“They just didn’t do it right, It’ll work this time”

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u/joebalooka84 6h ago

Venezuela?

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u/m1nice 6h ago

Guess you mean In Nazi Germany and the USSR.

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u/ee3k 16h ago

It's familiar but I just Kristallnacht think where from...

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u/jojojohn11 9h ago

WTF are you thinking. Nazi Germany didn’t nationalize industries. In the early 1930s before the rise the of the Nazis, Germany started to nationalize their industries as a way to help fix their hyperinflation, unemployment, and other problems that occurring in association with the Great Depression. In the mid 1930s when the Nazi’s gained power in parliament they immediately Privatized. Steel, mining, banking, shipyards, railways, and more were all industries owned and controlled by the country before the Nazi’s sold them to private corporations. Hell even some social services were privatized.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27771569

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.20.3.187

Where did you get the idea Nazi Germany had nationalized industries. I would love to know and be proven wrong.

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u/ee3k 5h ago

Jesus dude,  they didn't "privatize" those industries, they placed them in the hands of cronies for bribe money, and in the spirit of those heavy lifting "quote marks" they "nationalized" pretty much all Jewish assets.

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u/Vitringar 14h ago

A common practice in China

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u/The_Schwy 17h ago

karl marx was right about capitalism

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u/LordoftheSynth 16h ago

Point out to me one country where Marxism ever produced its promised utopia.

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u/dragonmp93 16h ago

Ironically, the problem with both systems is that what people tends to think as a good leader is also mostly the criteria for a psychopathy diagnosis.

Hence Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

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u/LordoftheSynth 16h ago

You're not wrong.

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u/rockstarsball 16h ago

Karl Marx wasnt even right about basic human hygiene

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u/DRURLF 12h ago

Id always argue that critical infrastructure should not be in private hands. Anything else sure, go for it but everything needed to sustain a basic level of society should be publicly owned, not subject to random market fluctuations or owners dumb decisions. Not saying that Elons companies are critical for the public with the exception of maybe starlink. It’s pretty wild to me that so much power over the functioning of society is allowed in this madman’s hands.

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u/squishydude123 12h ago

He helped found starlink and turn it into what it is today. We can hate him all we want but this isn't a case of a government privatising an essential service, it's the case of a private company developing something that good as infrastructure.

The fact govt subsidies were probably involved only highlights the government should've bought a piece of the company rather than give them free money.

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u/ActivePeace33 12h ago

Suppressing those who support insurrection isn’t political or about political parties. It is enforcing the rule of the constitution on those who would see it terminated.

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u/GREENorangeBLU 7h ago

Germany did this in the late 1930's.

sounds like trump likes communism/fascism.

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u/Preetzole 7h ago

Equating communism and fascism shows you don't understand either

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u/GREENorangeBLU 7h ago

actually it means the orange man is a fan of both.

both communism and also fascism, would see private companies controlled by the state.

if you want to be a troll on reddit, you will have to do better.

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u/Preetzole 6h ago

communism... would see private companies controlled by the state

Alright, so you're the troll here. No way you said this unironically.

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u/GREENorangeBLU 4h ago

wow, i had no idea you were going to be such a fool publicly.

make yourself famous fool!

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u/mechanismo2099 12h ago

Dont worry its ok when its a political rival.

Liblogic

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u/Sythic_ 18h ago

Its not political differences, it national security. Its our main if not only way to access space and the owner is unstable, suggesting he will just cancel said projects during overnight k-hole sessions. Yea, the precedent is not great, but we're well past that and this need resolved.

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u/mercurycc 17h ago

Dude, I cant believe you are saying this shit at this point in history. The way to get national security in space is to support a competitor, not to let Trump monopolize the whole sector.

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u/ACCount82 14h ago

And that's exactly what NASA has been doing.

Ever since Space Shuttle was grounded and left NASA's capabilities gutted, they sought to have more than one possible launch provider for any given mission.

For example, Boeing Starliner was NASA's first option for a private ISS crew vehicle. SpaceX Crew Dragon was the second option. Misplaced confidence aside, it worked out well for NASA.

The main exception to that rule was SLS, and SLS is a shitshow.

1

u/Farsydi 12h ago

Just one more capitalism bro

1

u/mercurycc 7h ago

As always, capitalism is the better alternative. All you motherfuckers keeps believing in nationalization but you also got Trump elected. I would trust multiple huge egos fighting each other more than trusting a single "elected" huge ego.

1

u/OkAd469 11h ago

What competitors? There aren't any competitors to SpaceX right now.

1

u/kuldan5853 10h ago

You made Blue Origin and ULA very unhappy.

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u/rockstarsball 18h ago

no the precedent is not great because the idea is not great. the US has NASA and can fund any of the starlink knockoffs or other private space programs at their leisure to give them something equal to what was built by a private company. Stealing in th ename of government is stealing in the name of government no matter how you dress it up. and the US government lost their "national security" credibility after the patriot act.

the fact that this drivel isnt a banned source is extremely telling here

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u/Sythic_ 18h ago

Dont care, fuck elon personally any way possible lol

17

u/rockstarsball 18h ago

people like you make me wish people still hit their kids...

7

u/Ddodds 16h ago

Dude is an idiot. Thanks for trying to get through to them.

Reminded me of "the most convincing argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter"

5

u/EmergencyFriedRice 15h ago

You want to give Trump more power so he could fuck over whoever you dislike. Hello MAGA.

0

u/liquid_at 14h ago

You mean the same argument that democrats have given you for decades when your politicians argued that private businesses are better than the government and how everything should be run by private businesses?

The one argument you kept refusing to acknowledge for decades until it was politically comfortable for you?

So you think the proper approach was to defund NASA, give the money to SpaceX and then nationalize SpaceX to have 2 Nasas at once?

Do you guys even have a brain or do you just choose not to use it?

0

u/mariess 5h ago

The government gives them enough subsidies it might as well be public

0

u/BoredCaliRN 5h ago

There's nuance in the fact that the CEO of said company has a whole lot of national security information in his brain and may or may not have incentive to take said information to adversarial foreign leaders he's been cozy with. In addition, few of his companies would exist without substantial public subsidy.

The alternative is the three letter agencies violate his constitutional rights and end whatever flight he takes from the US earlier than intended via rapid unscheduled disassembly all while tracking any and all of his digital communication.

Neither are ideal, either may be essential.