It’s a dumb argument. SpaceX flourished because NASA is being destroyed by incompetent political overseers who can’t follow a long term plan to save their lives (or avoid feeding at the trough). Nationalising SpaceX would just give the idiots screwing NASA even more to screw over. Elon’s an asshole, but I’d rather not see the space program go on pause for the next fifty years. Again.
The Republican way…fuck up a well working system they say it sucks and then they make it more expensive and shitter, but one rich asshole get to control it
This has nothing to do with republicans. The fucking up of NASA was very much a bipartisan effort
The author wants the capabilities of SpaceX “brought into the sphere of democracy.” That sounds less like nationalisation and more like selling it to a functioning government. I wouldn’t trust Trump or his cronies to run things any more than I would Elon. Fortunately, Gwynne Shotwell is the functioning adult running the company and (mostly) managing Elon’s interference.
Also
Any story about SpaceX as a font of private innovation because it’s free from state interference would be hard to square with the economic reality of the many billions it’s reaped from its numerous contracts, some public and some classified, with NASA and the Department of Defense. Without that, SpaceX in anything like its current form would be unthinkable.
Without “that” - meaning contracts to deliver services. Should they have not taken any government jobs? Does “build a new vehicle to deliver people to ISS” or “deliver satellites to orbit” count as state interference? This paragraph is idiocy. As far as I know, the only government money granted to SpaceX was ~25M from Texas to lure Starbase and Starlink production. Everything else was a contract or other performance-based funding.
SpaceX - with reusability - has undeniably changed the space industry on a global scale, and the decrease in $/kg to orbit is the main factor in our ability to access space and the solar system. The cost hadn’t gotten meaningfully under $5,000/kg ever, with the Shuttle at $65k/kg, until Falcon 9 brought it to ~2500 and Heavy down to 1500. Starship (which has been performing successful tests with some explosive secondary goals) should get it to $200/kg. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-space-launches-low-earth-orbit
Fuck Trump. Fuck Musk and his drug-fueled slide into shitbaggery. Let SpaceX cook.
While I like the idea. The last thing we need to do, is give trump the power to do this.
…he has it? That’s a power of the government. It may require more than just trump to say to do it, but he definitely has the ability to nationalize just about anything.
The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts
I think it’s a totally reasonable thing to do.
Honestly surprising to see the ratio here. (11⬆️ to 7⬇️ at time of posting.) Downvoters, I’m curious about your rationale: why do you think this is a bad idea?
The only time the government is willing to spend money on space exploration ( or anything for that matter) is if they are trying to play a game of “Im better then you” with other nations.
We have a public space agency in the US and they have done jack all in maned space exploration since the end of the Apollo program. And what little they have done has been massively overpriced.
In my opinion , it’s best to have both public and commercial space flight programs. Greed in two different directions might actually accomplish something and I strongly believe that we need a STRONG space presence not just in our own solar system but in many systems throughout the galaxy for our own survival as a species.
And what little they have done has been massively overpriced.
NASA budget is nonexistent and everytime they start working on something meaningful they are forced to cancel the project due to funding cuts. It was at 4.41% of the federal spending during the peak of Apollo mission, it’s 0.3% today.
SpaceX on the other hand enjoys those government handouts for doing nothing and reusing public tech, research and even personel (after Musk himself was able to fire those people) from NASA.
P.S. NASA missions might cost more, but they also don’t explode as a way to “test shit”. Public reaction to that would be a lot different, no?
Interesting. Thank you for sharing your perspective. I appreciate it.
Downvotes aren’t for disagreeing with the article lol
My guess is corporations or conservatives don’t like Jacobin?
