We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink
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In 2019, the U.S. invested $667 billion in R&D. The private sector is responsible for most R&D in the United States, in 2019 performing 75 percent of R&D and funding 72 percent
In some economies, the private sector overwhelmingly drives R&D. Israel leads the way, with the private sector responsible for 92% of total R&D, followed by Viet Nam (90%), Ireland (80%), and both Japan and the Republic of Korea (79%). The private sector also plays a significant role in the US, China, several European economies, Thailand, Singapore, Türkiye, Canada, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and others, where it contributes over half (50%) of total R&D.
source
The business sector is the largest funder of R&D in the top R&D-performing countries, with lower shares funded by government, higher education, and private nonprofit institutions. In each of the leading R&D performers in East and Southeast Asia—China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—the domestic business sector accounted for at least 75% of R&D funding in 2021.
sourceIn order to maintain a monopoly you have to keep innovating and offering a quality service, otherwise there there will be a 100 startups waiting to take your place if you ever give them an in. The most dangerous monopolies are created by government regulations, bureaucracy and bailouts.
Starship has ~150 tons payload capacity, if made fully reusable you only have to cover the fuel and operational costs, fuel is ~1 mil for a LEO launch so $6.66 per kg + operational costs, so the $10 per kg figure isn't too far off.
All of your comment is pointless. My whole point was research, not research and development. No shit, in countries where the predominant mode of production is capitalism, where it's been socially determined that development is done by private companies, the main source of funding for research and development is private capital, because there is no public development as a consequence of a social decision.
In order to maintain a monopoly you have to keep innovating and offering a quality service
No, you have to consolidate market power, bribe officials, perform marketing campaigns, buy the competition, and abuse your overwhelming economic and legal power and economy of scale. Good examples are car manufacturers eliminating the public transit systems in the beginning of the 20th century USA, natural monopolies such as energy, water and internet supply, or the significant additional rise of prices all over the economy as a consequece of corporate greed after the 2022 inflation episode. You've been lied about your economic axioms and you live in an imaginary world of neoclassical/neoliberal economics that have 0 predictive power.
Starship has
failed. What starship has, is failed.
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You paid for services rendered. By your logic you should eventually own your neighborhood grocery store because that's where you buy your bread.
You’re talking to someone on lemmy, there’s a very high likelihood they think exactly that.
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American exceptionalism is so fucking annoying. Their country is failing to a point hopefully this first person shit rightfully corrects to third person.
American exceptionalism definitely sucks, but this is not an example of American exceptionalism. The source is an article from an American magazine, published for an American audience.
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this the one time I’m with the commies
Are you against universal and free healthcare, education and retirement? Are you against improving worker rights, paid holidays, sick leave, guaranteed housing and guaranteed employment? Are you against unionisation of workplaces and collective worker decisions mattering in business? Are you against heavy regulation against climate change and pollution of the environment? Are you against anti-racism, feminism, anti-fascism and the redistribution of wealth from the richest to the poorest? I'm sure you have a lot more common ground with us commies than you think
*in theory
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SpaceX has an internal team that works to make sure Musk can’t interfere with anything, because he’s so bad at managing businesses. Gwynne Shotwell is the one in charge of SpaceX.
I am not surprised in the slightest. I mean if you have a bunch of smart, highly motivated people it sounds like keeping the crazy man at arms length is the kind of thing they'd organise very effectively.
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In the USA space-x gets away with a lot. A few years ago they announced they were no longer going to bother with getting all the FAA approvals needed for their rockets because it took too long. Space-x still got government contracts.
A few years ago they announced they were no longer going to bother with getting all the FAA approvals needed for their rockets because it took too long. Space-x still got government contracts.
How long back was that? I genuinely didn't hear about that, but I believe that would happen. I tried googling "space x faa" but I'm getting results of FAA investigating rocket issues and approvals of rocket models.
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Yeah, let's give the trump administration the power to seize companies it doesn't like, that is a great idea that def won't be abused all the time
Congress has always had this power. I'm personally for nationalizing telecomm companies.
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Not to mention that Musk himself contributed nothing to SpaceX's technical achievements. All he did was insist that the audio of their launches and recoveries include employees cheering maniacally - easily the most annoying aspect of SpaceX.
I'm sorry... you don't think employees who are achieving world firsts are allowed to celebrate?
You must be fun at parties
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All of your comment is pointless. My whole point was research, not research and development. No shit, in countries where the predominant mode of production is capitalism, where it's been socially determined that development is done by private companies, the main source of funding for research and development is private capital, because there is no public development as a consequence of a social decision.
In order to maintain a monopoly you have to keep innovating and offering a quality service
No, you have to consolidate market power, bribe officials, perform marketing campaigns, buy the competition, and abuse your overwhelming economic and legal power and economy of scale. Good examples are car manufacturers eliminating the public transit systems in the beginning of the 20th century USA, natural monopolies such as energy, water and internet supply, or the significant additional rise of prices all over the economy as a consequece of corporate greed after the 2022 inflation episode. You've been lied about your economic axioms and you live in an imaginary world of neoclassical/neoliberal economics that have 0 predictive power.
Starship has
failed. What starship has, is failed.
Cool beans, see ya soon, I'll keep you updated.
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Giving companies to the state doesn't always work well. However giving companies to the workers does.
Which... is mostly what SpaceX already is. It's a privately owned company, and the employees own a huge amount of the shares
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I don’t think the majority of Americans understand what that means. They’ll just scream “commies!” And raise their maga flag.
But the idea of a starlink-like business owned by UN would be nice, and not an American corporation owned by a nepobaby Elmo.
You should familiarize yourself with Telsat Canada's LEO plans. Should be complete in less than 2 years.
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Donald Trump does not have "all the power". Otherwise, he wouldn't be acquiescing to the courts at all. It's wild to me that you think that the US government would do a worse job of running SpaceX and Starlink than Elon Musk.
You're treating it like simply replacing one CEO with another, but that isn't what it would be. I know that Trump wants to be king, but he still isn't.
It's wild to me that you think that the US government would do a worse job of running SpaceX and Starlink than Elon Musk.
Two things. First, I'm not suggesting the US couldn't run SpaceX given the appropriate funding. I'm suggesting the US won't run spaceX. Trump will figure out how to deprive it of all funding, or appoint some lackey as a director to totally disassemble it. Do you honestly have any doubt that's exactly how it would go down?
Second, It's wild to me that you think that the SpaceX is run by Elon Musk. Go look up who the CEO is.
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Where's the grift tho? What's the angle? How will this enrich an uber-privileged pale bro?
Looks like we found someone who believed it was financially necessary for the manufacture of the shuttle to be spread across the country.
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I don’t think the majority of Americans understand what that means. They’ll just scream “commies!” And raise their maga flag.
But the idea of a starlink-like business owned by UN would be nice, and not an American corporation owned by a nepobaby Elmo.
Can you imagine who would run those companies if they were government owned?
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The oligarchs wouldn't like that precedent but they might go for purchasing SpaceX since it is owned by a foreigner. Kind of like with TikTok....
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Can you imagine who would run those companies if they were government owned?
Yeah. A gov; be it the UN or a country.
Having worked and then contracted to regional and Muni govs, and worked for dotcoms, I can tell you one of them follows way, WAY more of the regs than the other.
It's like transpo & highways vs private roads and rail: one of them is way better-maintained when there is a comparison.
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Step one Musk needs to be arrested and sent to El Salvador.
No thanks. We need to shut down all U.S. affiliation with prisons outside the U.S. Release those prisoners or transfer them back to the U.S. and have proper trials. Trump needs to stand trial for the fake electors and for every unconstitutional measure he has done before/since as an unconstitutional act that the Supreme Court deems unconstitutional should not be considered an official act. The President should be suspended from all duties until Congress performs an investigation draws up the articles of impeachment and it is tried by the Senate.
Musk should be tried for election interference and any other laws he may have broken but it should be done right here in the U.S. If anything freeze all of his accounts and require him to step down from any/all roles within his companies as part of his required bale terms, or otherwise he would be choosing to spend the time awaiting trial in jail.
These actions would ensure they aren't trying to drag court cases out for years, they would want the court cases to move along faster.
Would Trump get convicted by the Senate, unlikely. That's on us for voting terrible people into the legislative branch. But we can't complain about those who break the law if we think it's fine to break the law when it fits our wants. We need to update those laws legally or tear the whole thing down and say Musk and Trump didn't break any laws because we didn't think those laws mattered as well.
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Never lived up to the hype. Take almost as much effort to get ready for another flight as building another one.
I'm no Musk apologist, but this statement is nowhere close to being true.
SpaceX: Elon Musk breaks down the costs of reusable rockets
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has lifted the lid on why reusing Falcon 9 boosters makes economic sense in the long term.
Inverse (www.inverse.com)
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I doubt the Ukrainians would agree with you
This is a really weird "ends always justify the means" because I could also say it wouldn't be necessary if Ukraine never gave up their nuclear weapons and how I doubt the Ukrainians would disagree. This is also further impacted by the protection of Starlink by the US military because if it wasn't an act of war against the US to destroy them, Russia could take down low earth orbit satellites pretty easily.
But none of this is relevant to how Starlink is not an ISP, it is not infrastructure it is a fleeting wasteful service.
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*in theory
Most of those things I mentioned are/were a material reality in socialist countries such as Cuba or the Soviet Union, except for climate change and pollution and some things regarding feminism and homosexuality due to moral shortcomings of 20th century thought.