Revoke launch licenses until NASA gets what they need. Export ban on company and tech. Nationalize launch assets if absolutely necessary. Or at least threaten these things. SpaceX needs starlink, the kind of AI revenue they’d otherwise need is never going to materialize. Force them to play ball.
All of these are rational national plans, if only the administration is rational and working on national interests.
Musk also desperately needs that starlink revenue to continue until he can merge Tesla and SpaceX to cover for dropping Tesla sales.
Sure, those are all things the government could do in a world where this wasn’t the intended outcome.
NASA is being fed to SpaceX like a prime rib.
Yeah that’ll happen. I’ll just stay standing while holding my breath until it does.
And who will make these restrictions? Until someone shoots trump, that’s not going to happen. Hopefully it happens soon.
NASA helped keep SpaceX alive when it couldn’t make payroll, then spent decades making it indispensable. Now Musk has discovered that launching AI servers pays better than launching astronauts. Outsourcing your space program to one billionaire was a bold leap for mankind, straight into a monopoly with rocket engines.
I don’t think it was intentional on NASA, Boeing couldn’t really deliver with starliner and SLS isn’t as good as they hoped either.
SLS is a congressionally mandated jobs program.
NASA was forced to use existing shuttle infrastructure instead of developing new hardware with partners. If they had been given freedom, I’m sure we wouldn’t even need SpaceX for anything.
@Zron @technology True, #NASA was forced to use the Shuttle engines but part of the reason was the US had no capability to design and manufacture a similar rocket motor. We were entirely dependent on using the Russian Proton engines. This was one factor in support for helping SpaceX — to recreate a U.S. capability to build rocket motors. At the time, we needed a new launch system engine for smaller uncrewed spacecraft missions. That decision had nothing to do with the Lunar/Mars human spaceflight ambitions. The alternative proposal on the table was to refurbish stored ICBMs for this purpose. The Earth-to-Orbit ISS resupply need came later. (I know this because I was there and involved.)
True, NASA is basically a jobs program — for the southern states; this is where most of the money goes. LBJ did that to get the votes for the appropriations needed and to keep the southern state Democrats in the party. Part of the political culture at NASA HQ is to “efficiently distribute money to Congressional districts.” The NASA centers in Houston and Huntsville had a corresponding sense of entitlement, at least when I was working with them at the beginning of the Constellation program. Now that Senator Shelby (Alabama) is no longer the ranking head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, maybe things will start to change in the human spaceflight area. Huntsville’s NASA centers had/have responsibility for the remaining space shuttle’s engines.
Both are failed companies, but Musk has more money on hand and can keep the lights on for longer.
You type like an ai, why
Not just that. They helped them create everything they’ve made. NASA freely helped them design their rockets and gave them their information on technologies that would help them. SpaceX should be, at least in part, if not wholely, publicly owned.
This is why you don’t privatize space exploration and research
privatize space expiration
Dear god
Fixed, I still can’t find a good mobile keyboard
Futo if your on android ticks (most) boxes for me.
Thanks!
I tried it a few months ago, the issue is I cut the end of my right thumb off when I was a teenager so soft keyboards are a problem. I have issues on iOS but its generally better
Ah shoot, that would do it.
Guessing that swipe typing is OK? I remember way back when it was first introduced as a 3rd party keyboard on Android I started using it, but quickly gave up.
Nationalize Space X after all these pedophiles are in prison, lol.
nationalize the everlasting fuck out of this company.
Imagine if we’d funded NASA amd taxed billionaires propely to pay for it all along.
We had and have a national space agency. A private company has surpassed them and is now offering launches 90% cheaper than NASA. It’s cost overruns are also 97% less. If NASA were “funded properly,” we would be paying a lot more for a lot fewer launches.
Now imagine where it would be if Republicans hadn’t ratfucked the program’s budget for 60 years
found the spacex shareholder
a private company that got bootstrapped by federal dollars, NASA research, and nasa personnel, led by someone who can’t be trusted and is rolling spacex into grok x tesla etc.
SpaceX needs NASA contacts now now than ever. The jerk’s AI business has been shoved into SpaceX, and that’s a money burning machine. Should NASA take one too many contracts away from SpaceX, the huge red numbers will come out.
I think this is the right take.
SpaceX may believe they’ve discovered a business model without NASA, but when the bubble pops they’ll be singing a different tune.
This is also a good reason to not nationalize spaceX as so many in this thread are calling for. I don’t want to be financially responsible for the AI mess they’re investing in now. Let them eat those losses.
Who would have guessed that spacex would squeeze nasa the very first chance they got. No one saw that coming.
They don’t have the ability to squeeze them. They are offering more launches, with fewer costs overruns, at a better cost.
Imprison Musk for treason and nationalize spaceX
nationalize as in purchase? or steal?
when countries nationalize a company they actually purchase it.
so you want the government to pay Elon literal trillions, for what exactly?
prioritize health care, housing and reducing inflation, ignore shitty people in orbit for now.
Pay him? Fucking imprison him for his DOGE crimes alone, then seize his assets and utilize them for the national good.
What an interesting twist of logic. SpaceX is three companies in a trenchcoat and laughably overvalued. Even by their own hilariously optimistic IPO documentation, the rocketry company represented a very small portion of the overall value. So sure, pay for the rocketry part. Now let’s see how Starlink fares (literally) without a build-in government floated launch platform. It’s okay though, because xAI will be worth $22,000,000,000,000 any day now.
That sounds very communist. US doesn’t nationalize companies. US wages war against countries known for doing that (right now it’s Iran).
And yet, the govt owns 10% of Intel stocks.
The only reason I’ve been critical of NASA is because of their over reliance on that shit heel musk
This result was inevitable the monent that the government decided to outsource their space exploration/scientific endeavors to a private company.
You don’t need to be Cassandra to be able to recognize 100% predictable outcomes.
Huh I wasn’t aware starlink is bringing in so much money.
There’s a massive number of people for who the options are Starlink, or no Internet.
A lot of users here really can’t wrap their head around just how remote some people are. And then there’s vessels at sea etc.
We had Starlink for a few months when we moved into our house. It was a new build and we were one of the first in the neighborhood, so the telecoms hadn’t laid out wire yet.
It was honestly great. We’d get almost a gig down and never really had any connection issues unless it was heavy snow.
My in laws live in the middle of nowhere and they went from I want to say hughsnet to Starlink and it’s been night and day for them.
Starlink has also been huge for vanlifers wanting to remote in to their jobs, but live on the road.
yea we use Starlink at home, otherwise it’s ADSL that barely works -and I mean barely- and costs the exact same.
Yeah, we had ADSL where I live for a long time before we go fibre. Even with the exchange directly across the road from my house, it was painful.
In addition to the consumers using it, they’ve been making bank on commercial sales like airlines and cruiseships. But ya, it’s a money maker even accounting for having to renew the constellation every 5 years.
Also don’t forget starshield, so they’re taking in government money all around the world too
You’d think non us sales of starshield would plummet though until the trump admin admits they altered starshield in Ukraine, because its beyond horrifying if Musk altered starshield. He can alter starlink all he wants (but will have to face the backlash), but altering starshield should be the brightest red line ever drawn.
Not that trump altering it should instill confidence in allies either though
This is some Borderlands megacorporation bullshit I tell ya.
SpaceX and Starlink should have to be broken up. xAI’s purchase by SpaceX never should have been allowed. The contracts for NASA should have always required ownership of the investments made and the amount of rented tech never should have been allowed critical mass. Starlink should have been allowed a monopolistic ownership of its spots in space and should have been for forced to create an open interoperability standard from the jump.
The fact that “SI” is how SpaceX is talking about those AI projects shows they are very much still a government contractor even in this phase, just looking at different pots of money. Contracts that Musk’s massive ties to corruption should be viewed as last resort, at least until they cut him out of the company (while he is charged and tried for his corruption).
In the long run that makes sense. In the short term, they’re linked. SpaceX doesn’t have contracts to fill every launch, so they fill in the extra space with Starlilnk launches. Starlink doesn’t exist without SpaceX.
Starlink needing a subsidy for launches is only because they are operating as a monopoly. Competitors get flights just fine without it
This is why he’s wrapping all his other companies into SpaceX
Before SpaceX it was the ULA doing ALL launches. This is nothing new. Launch is expensive, and no one wants to pay the barrier to entry.
Exactly. NASA bankrolled SpaceX to break the ULA monopoly, and now they are also funding Blue Origin to break the SpaceX monopoly. Rinse and repeat forever.
