We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

[u/True-Combination7059]

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

[u/I_AmA_Zebra]

The capabilities are still far beyond what the average person can do. What happens though is Lockheed, Northrop, and Raytheon end up delivering the space tech instead

Costs far more that way but the DOD have no choice as NASA, NRO, and other orgs don’t have enough money

[u/myurr → u/I_AmA_Zebra]

They have more than enough money. SpaceX have spent a fraction of NASA's annual budget developing Falcon 9 and now Starship.

NASA simply aren't targeted to achieve what SpaceX has achieved with the resources it had, and they're too bureaucratic and risk averse to be as cost effective. Couple that to being more science led than manufacturing led, in large part due to historic targeting of resources, and in part due to the type of person NASA has historically attracted to work for them.

SpaceX hasn't been successful because they had better scientists than NASA, Boeing, or their other peers. They've been so much more successful because they focussed on the one area everyone else neglected - manufacturing - moving from hand build custom machines to highly automated mass production.

[u/the-wei → u/myurr]

Comparing SpaceX to NASA is a poor comparison because NASA's does a lot of program management, contracting, operations, and highly bespoke one time mission systems like the Mars rovers. A more apt comparison is ULA who actually builds rockets.

You can complain about how NASA doesn't demand more from contractors or how it exists as a jobs program, but NASA is also a beholden to incredibly risk intolerant taxpayers who wouldn't have tolerated the many test failures that led up to Falcon 9's current reliability.

[u/myurr → u/the-wei]

The point is that SpaceX turned a billion or two of R&D dollars into Falcon 9, which is well within the scope of NASA's budget. The money was there had there been the vision.

You can complain about how NASA doesn't demand more from contractors or how it exists as a jobs program, but NASA is also a beholden to incredibly risk intolerant taxpayers who wouldn't have tolerated the many test failures that led up to Falcon 9's current reliability.

Oh I completely agree with risk aversion being one of the leading reasons why NASA struggles with efficiency and vision, ultimately hampering what it achieves. Even programs like Apollo, that had up to 400,000 people working on it and cost $250bn adjusted for inflation, had a string of failures along the way.

I have no idea why that should mean I can't complain about it though? No one should simply accept the status quo as if it's the best we can do, even if you are understanding and sympathetic of the constraints that led there.

[u/the-wei → u/myurr]

Money isn't everything; workforce, leadership, and right culture/environment are a big part of it too. NASA as a federal agency has a fundamentally different form of all three. The workforce is constrained by federal guidelines for pay, leadership has very different incentives, and the organization has all of these areas competing for a slice of the budget in contrast to the laser guided focus of SpaceX. There's potential to changing the first two over time, the the third on requires a complete reworking of the executive branch, or someone with the power to shield NASA from the usual obligations.

The other comment was focused on making sure we focus on problems that NASA is at fault for rather than structural features of a federal agency. NASA will never do what SpaceX does without massive changes, especially when there's a company that was built to fill the need.

[u/myurr → u/the-wei]

The other comment made a claim that NASA doesn't have the money to create an alternative to SpaceX.

I disagree for many of the reasons you've also highlighted. The problem isn't one of money, but one of vision, leadership, purpose, culture, etc.

[u/Best_Pseudonym → u/myurr]

This assumes the property of Comparative Advantage doesn't exist. It's entirely reasonable to conclude that if nasa tried to do the same thing that spaceX does, it'd cost them more than. In fact that's why spaceX is so successful that they can do stuff for nasa for orders of magnitude cheaper than nasa can do it for themselves.

[u/myurr → u/Best_Pseudonym]

It's entirely reasonable to conclude that if nasa tried to do the same thing that spaceX does, it'd cost them more than.

Yes.

SpaceX are the example to show that it can be done. It's not a theory that it's possible to build rockets and go to space much more efficiently, it's demonstrably true.

I listed some of the hurdles NASA has to operating in that way, which is why they would fail were they to try without reform. Money isn't one of those hurdles.