Yeah. Let’s give Trump that power.

So you wanna nationalize the whole telecom industry then?

all taxpayer money anyway

Yes but with very little to show for it. If the government just treated all undelivered orders as debt, it would end up deep in the red.

Then, how do we benefit from SpaceX? I'm not bashing the NASA, but I see no point in all the waste SpaceX is producing, down on earth and its orbit. These satelites are likely to crash one day in a chain reaction.

It’s not enough, but I would bet it might have a cooling effect as it reflects more light in the upper atmosphere.

But we should really still make sure, and more importantly not trust Elon with any data flowing over those satellites.

Well, now that you bring it up...

Only short term, long term the repeated rocket launches can’t win out over a ditch digger.

I fully agree. Any industry that can’t survive on its own and needs public funds, shouldn’t exist. If it’s an essential service it should be nationalized.

This is the thing, NASA is underfunded as it is, if we nationalized SpaceX, we wouldn't actually continue to fund it appropriately and it would simply die. Actually, with trump at the helm, nationalizing it would mean Trump immediately liquidating it. SpaceX is definitely the most successful rocket company in the US. It would be an awful shame for the space industry and for humanity's future in space.

I hate musk as much as the next guy, but I think the success of spaceX is undeniable. Their success with reusable rockets is not just impressive, it's ground breaking and important. Developing a fully reusable rocket is probably the most important challenge humans are working on in this era, and I only know of three companies attempting to do it. I don't want to kill the company that's furthest along.

NASA is clearly capable of things given the right circumstances and budget.

Absolutely agree with this but there is no denying the innovation levels at spacex are higher (I'm not saying this is down to musk specifically. The man is a horror story of a human).

We were all in total awe when seeing booster stages land themselves successfully for the first time. It was such a giant leap forward and to the best of my knowledge no government funded space agency was even considering it before spacex.

Of course he was always a jerk, but I still think of a reality where Elon never went (officially) Nazi and just stuck with his otherwise important companies. Tesla being an important early mover in EVs, especially in such an oil-dependent country, and all the cool stuff SpaceX has been up to.

What do you mean little to show for it?

You guys are so stuck in the cult of personality. WE PAID FOR EVERYTHING SPACEX DID. IT BELONGS TO US.

Yes, absolutely. And power too

Lets reach a compromise. Impeach Trump (successfully) and then take away SpaceX from Elon. That way things would be fair.

And pharma. And O&G

Tax burdens for billionaires

How are there so many people in this thread talking with such confidence and yet know absolutely nothing? SpaceX is the reason NASA doesn't need to rely on Russia to get astronauts to and from the ISS, so that's one huge benefit.
And Starlink is in such a low orbit that their orbits are constantly decaying and will burn up in the atmosphere without any orbit corrections. So there will never be a chain reaction crash.

I mean you have to realize how important it will be to have fully reusable rockets and a significantly reduced price to get to space. The goal with starship is to reduce the cost of getting to orbit by at least an order of magnitude (but possibly much more than that). When that starts to happen it'll allow for new and exciting things to happen in space.

First, we can go back to the moon and to Mars, we can explore again. But more than that, it will make some new things possible. It will eventually become feasible for resource extraction and manufacturing to move to space. That would mean processes that produce harmful waste don't have to happen on our planet. Mining asteroids would mean again, minimal ecological impact compared to mining a mountain on Earth. And of course creating industry in space is the first step towards a future where people actually live in space, the first step towards humanity getting a real foothold off of earth.

But you literally can't get to any of those possibilities without reusable rockets first, it's just not feasible.