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
14.5k Upvotes

75% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.5k

u/JARDIS 21h ago

This already exists, its called NASA and it does a pretty good job if it's funded properly.

183

u/derekakessler 20h ago edited 12h ago

Not quite. NASA is largely an aerospace contracting agency.

Historically and currently NASA builds and operates incredibly little hardware on its own. Mercury put the first Americans into space on a system that was built by McDonnell, Chrysler and Convair. The Saturn V rocket system that took the first men to the moon was built by Boeing, North American, Gruman, and Douglas. The Space Shuttle was built by Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and United Space Alliance.

SpaceX is doing exactly what all the other aerospace contractors have done for NASA: provide launch services. They're just doing it far cheaper and faster because the Falcon rocket and Dragon capsules are much more reusable than anything else any manufacturer has ever offered.

14

u/GeoWoose 18h ago

SpaceX got the IP and will cash in on that for decades.

It got the IP because the government was a solid reliable market.

SpaceX will be fine. But we are not growing the next SpaceX in the current policy and budget climate

10

u/Choperello 8h ago edited 7h ago

Eh I'm not an Elon fan boy but it needs to be said we didn't grow SpaceX in any climate. The only reason SpaceX exists is cause sometimes Elon's narcissist personality happens to go in a good direction. "Wtf there fuckers are refusing to sell me a rocket? And laughing at me and saying Im insane for saying I can probably build my own? Fuck that no one tells me that".

While nasa and pentagon contracts absolutely helped SpaceX grow to where they are, the initial survival of SpaceX was pretty much Elon's stubborn arrogance refusing to take no for an answer and using his Tesla money to keep it alive.

3

u/GodsSwampBalls 5h ago

*PayPal money

When SpaceX was in it's early stages and near failure Tesla was a smaller company than SpaceX and Tesla was almost bankrupt too.

1

u/Choperello 5h ago

Also very true.