Skip to content

We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

Technology
443 190 0
  • This post did not contain any content.

    imagine how many more rockets we could reuse if the NASA subdivision formerly known as SpaceX did literally any of the standard, rigorous fault-checks.

  • This post did not contain any content.

    NOW they complain about giving Musk money?
    Most of the 38 billion was given by Biden.

  • It’s a shame you commies don’t know history? Do you avoid it on purpose because it interferes with your ability to make shit up and try to sound intelligent

    I know it's asking a lot, but you could give an example instead of insulting me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  • 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.

    If your want proof that the wealthy live by a different set of laws, look no further than the time Elon Musk, ceo of SpaceX, went on a podcast and smoked weed.

    SpaceX has DOD contracts for launches, and somehow him blatantly violating federal law had no impact on the contracts his company fulfilled for the government.

    Do I think weed should be classified like it is? No.

    Do I think that everyone should be held to the same standard? Yes. And if anyone else had been involved in government projects while going on podcasts and smoking weed, they’d at the very least be fired.

  • The article is not far off from the mob mentality in this thread. It makes one good point, that one oligarch should not be in control of a global communications network, but it fails to notice that this move would take the power from one wealthy individual and hand it over to another, who now holds all the power.

    And let's be clear, if we nationalized, Trump would ruin SpaceX, run it right into the ground like every company he's ever touched. Starship would never be finished, despite being within sight of the rocketry holy grail, reusable rockets. Washington would take control of starlink, which would probably be good, except it gives trump control over a communication system, which is a terrible idea. But it wouldn't last long, because when we mismanage and underfund SpaceX and it crumbles, we'll have no way to replace starlink sats and the whole network will disappear.

    Nationalisation is SpaceX is a dumb idea because people aren't really thinking it all through. The outcome would be a lot worse for everyone, especially with a vindictive president that would like nothing more than to seize the assets of his opponents and liquidate them into his own coffers.

    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.

  • but they are also incredibly inefficient

    Dude, most research altogether is government funded, companies don't innovate for shit. Public research in Universities and research institutions amounts for the overwhelming majority of research, except in some sectors like automotive (where they managed to make cars 50000% bigger over the past 50 years and sell SUVs to city dwellers without lowering fuel consumption one fucking bit, my 2006 diesel car uses less fuel than most 2025 hybrids). Medicine, biology, languages, physics, chemistry... Without public funding, research dies. FFS, why do you think during the cold war the west rushed to fund public research with trillions of dollars instead of just "giving it to the free market to do its thing"?

    That's the beauty of the private sector, pure meritocracy

    Hahahahaha. This "don't tread on me" snake has never heard of the word "monopoly", or of market power. You live in an imaginary world made up by capitalist economists. Without public funding there's no education, without education there's no research, end of the story dumbass.

    Why do you think communist China is outpacing r&d in pretty much every field it decides to? Whether it be renewables, lithium batteries, electric cars, soon silicon, AI, and many other fields, China is advancing at paces the west doesn't dream of. You're taking the example of the most capitalist economy in the world (the USA) and using it to show how bad state-funded things in this hellhole are, no shit Sherlock.

    planing to reduce it to $10 with starship.

    Hahahahahahahaha yeah buddy, and we'll have full self-driving by 2021. A Musk fartbreather, of course you are.

    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

    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.
    source

    In 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.

  • No, honey, it's 2025.

    I don't know what happened to you, but im so fucking sorry.

    Edit: you can down vote me all you want. It doesn't change the truth. Odds are everyone you knew is dead.

    What are you talking about. They were saying nasa sent it to space in the 70s and it’s still functioning.

  • 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.

    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.

  • This post did not contain any content.

    We should just fund NASA and let SpaceX and Starlink go bankrupt to competitors.

  • 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

    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.
    source

    In 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.

    Telsat Lightspeed