We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink
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Even though it’s not a space trash problem, it is a regular upper atmosphere polluter of aluminum oxide ash. We don’t yet know the long term consequences.
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.
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So you wanna nationalize the whole telecom industry then?
Well, now that you bring it up...
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I think if you consider the cost to manufacture then bury a fibre optic cable for everyone who lives 10km from a town centre, I think it's still a net positive. It's not great for sure, but amortised over a huge population it's probably the best option we have at this time.
Only short term, long term the repeated rocket launches can’t win out over a ditch digger.
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Well, now that you bring it up...
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.
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You could always just fund the space agency you already have, instead of funneling money to a foreign billionaire.
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.
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Quite ironic from people constantly accusing their political adversaries to be communists...
Errr... am I mistaken? This is the first time I'm hearing about nationalizing SpaceX and it's from Jacobin....
Does Jacobin make a habit of calling people communists? Pretty sure they advocate for socialist positions usually....
big spiderman pointing at spiderman vibes if true
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You mean the NASA who landed people on the moon?
So let's assume you aren't a moon landing denier and use that as a baseline, NASA is clearly capable of things given the right circumstances and budget.
SpaceX benefited from his reputation and money, because they sure as shit didn't benefit from his technical acumen.
Business wise he is successful because he's rich and influential and that works to mitigate how shitty he is at actually running an organisation, that doesn't mean he has skills as a business person that means he has money and influence, in his case originally from the mine, then from buying and bullying his was in to businesses that were technologically sound and boosting them with his money.
You could make an argument he's a relatively good investor, but he's an actively bad CEO.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
What do you mean little to show for it?
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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.
You guys are so stuck in the cult of personality. WE PAID FOR EVERYTHING SPACEX DID. IT BELONGS TO US.
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So you wanna nationalize the whole telecom industry then?
Yes, absolutely. And power too
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Lets reach a compromise. Impeach Trump (successfully) and then take away SpaceX from Elon. That way things would be fair.
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Yes, absolutely. And power too
And pharma. And O&G
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Has US nationalized anything this millenia? I really don't see that ever happening
Tax burdens for billionaires
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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.
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. -
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.
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.
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Right? Like I’m assuming a lot of these people are self labeled progressives but they sure sound conservative to me. If any risk or collateral damage is unacceptable to make progress then we might as well just fucking go back to living in caves and be done with this civilization thing. I understand the disillusion with tech, and specifically the owners of said tech but you don’t have to swing to the other side and become a fucking Luddite or something. The problems are solvable through other mechanisms rather than just stopping tech innovation or this terrible terrible idea of nationalizing corporations.
These are the same people who complain about Trump having too much unfettered power btw. And here they are discussing giving him even more power. Ain’t that something?
It's also frustrating that people keep saying SpaceX "relies on taxpayer money" as if we're just giving them money for no reason. It's all contracts! SpaceX only gets money for providing some kind of service. They're not being bailed out or anything. The Musk hate is justified but so misdirected.
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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.
Perhaps look into the DC-X program, fully 20 years before SpaceX Falcon: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
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This is what happens when you meddle in politics
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They landed people on the moon and then did fuck all for decades.
When Musk started SpaceX he was not well known yet, SpaceX came before Tesla.
He was able to get into the businesses he has because he was rich yes, but you can find many accounts of engineers that worked under him speak of how good he was at finding ways to cut unnecessary costs.
He’s not a technical genius that’s for sure. But he has been a good CEO for SpaceX. Terrible one for Tesla though, mostly because he bought into his own myth and became a drug addict. But I refuse to simply wave away his achievements simply because I don’t like him. I can not like someone and still acknowledge they have done something good.
They landed people on the moon and then did fuck all for decades.
Indeed, all i was saying is that they were capable given budget and circumstances.
That budget and direction comes from the government.
When Musk started SpaceX he was not well known yet, SpaceX came before Tesla.
I will admit, i thought spacex was just another company he bought his way in to, like tesla, seems i was mistaken about that.
He was able to get into the businesses he has because he was rich yes, but you can find many accounts of engineers that worked under him speak of how good he was at finding ways to cut unnecessary costs.
And you can equally find many accounts of having to distract him from the day to day operations because he's unreliable , unpredictable and chaotic (none of those meant in a good way).
He's also known for buying good press and using litigation to silence people.
He’s not a technical genius that’s for sure. But he has been a good CEO for SpaceX.
I doubt this, but that could just be bias, i don't have any actual evidence of the long term impact of him as CEO.
Recently though, he's provably been significantly more of a liability than a benefit, even if just from a PR and public sentiment point of view.
But I refuse to simply wave away his achievements simply because I don’t like him. I can not like someone and still acknowledge they have done something good.
Indeed, i push back on the myth that he's some self made tony stark genius, but it isn't like he's not achieved anything.
I would personally attribute most of that to neptoism, wealth, luck and opportunity, but that doesn't remove the achievement itself.