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

Governments: spend 80 years developing space tech with public funding, allowing humanity to walk on the moon, have global positioning satellites, and essentially kickstart the computing industry from a necessity to build computers for orbital calculations

Yes, government funded endeavors are sometimes the only way to do things that don't have a clear ROI but they are also incredibly inefficient and as such should be kept only until it becomes viable for the private sector to take over.

Private companies: *mostly disappear and waste shareholder money, like Virgin or like Bezos' attempts at space

That's the beauty of the private sector, pure meritocracy, if you suck - you die. If those were public initiatives they would have been kept regardless of the costs or the results, wasting the taxpayer's money instead of the shareholders'.

one company with public funding raking in those 80 years of publicly-funded research to itself

If it was that easy NASA or all the failed companies you mentioned would have done it themselves. SpaceX has done an absolutely incredible job at innovating in the industry that has been in stagnation since the 80s, designing rapidly reusable rockets, lowering the cost per kg to LEO from $72k in today's money, from the space shuttle days to $2500 and planing to reduce it to $10 with starship.

The public funding part doesn't mean free money from the government, the government pays SpaceX for fulfilling contracts because NASA can't do it themselves, at least not as efficiently as SpaceX. Right now majority of SpaceX's revenue comes from starlink which mainly serves private consumers so it's reliance on the government contracts is being overstated.

underpaying and exploiting its engineers

SpaceX $155K-$247K/yr ($117K - $175K/yr base pay + $39K - $72K/yr stock)

NASA $113K - $158K/yr

lowering the costs at the expense of safety due to cutting in safety measures thay will never be tolerated when humans ride those rockets

As of 2025, SpaceX is the only U.S. company with a human-rated rocket system certified by NASA for regular flights to the International Space Station. NASA completed the certification of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket in 2023, marking the first time a commercial system was certified for human spaceflight.

Dumbass liberal lemmitor: pRiVaTe Is ClEaRlY sUpErIoR

Yes.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You paid for services rendered. By your logic you should eventually own your neighborhood grocery store because that's where you buy your bread.

American exceptionalism is so fucking annoying. Their country is failing to a point hopefully this first person shit rightfully corrects to third person.

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

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.

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.