We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink
We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink
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We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink
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264 comments
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You could always just fund the space agency you already have, instead of funneling money to a foreign billionaire.
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No this the one time I’m with the commies. Nationalize that shit. Like you said it’s all taxpayer money anyway. A little bit of Wall Street speculation, but who gives a fuck about those people
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it’s all taxpayer money anyway
Good point.
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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.
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What do you mean little to show for it?
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Reusable rockets are cool
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Never lived up to the hype. Take almost as much effort to get ready for another flight as building another one.
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I'm no Musk apologist, but this statement is nowhere close to being true.
https://www.inverse.com/innovation/spacex-elon-musk-falcon-9-economics
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So you wanna nationalize the whole telecom industry then?
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Well, now that you bring it up...
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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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So you want Donald Trump in charge of the telecom industry and any other industries that have received some sort of public subsidy?
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Yeah, maybe we can nationalize them with the clause that it kicks in when his heart stops beating
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This is the same mistake everyone makes. They think Donald Trump is just a person. That he actually matters and we just have to get rid of him and everything will be okay.
It doesn’t work that way.
As fascism didn’t die with Hitler, it’s not going to die with Trump. All of the problems — all of the rifts in our society — will still be there when he’s gone.
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lol you really threatened Lemmy with a good time
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Yes, absolutely. And power too
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And pharma. And O&G
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Yes please, maybe they'll fix the shit they've been getting paid for decades to fix finally.
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Don't threaten me with a good time!
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it'll be sold to the highest bidder is my bet
I would find it funny that billionaires would pass off the opportunity of taking musk's position on a discount
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I'll settle for whichever one annoys him the most.
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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
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*in theory
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Most of those things I mentioned are/were a material reality in socialist countries such as Cuba or the Soviet Union, except for climate change and pollution and some things regarding feminism and homosexuality due to moral shortcomings of 20th century thought.
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A tankie says what?
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Yes, I'm a tankie, you got me. How about you address the actual argument though? In the 1970s Soviet Union there was:
Guaranteed employment, free education to the highest level, free healthcare for everyone, guaranteed housing for everyone and the abolition of homelessness, 45h working week, retirement with guaranteed pension at 61 for men and at 55 for women, paid holiday and sick leave, highest unionisation population in the world, more female engineers inside the Soviet Union than in the rest of the world combined, lowest level of wealth inequality in the history of the region, subsidised and affordable basics like energy access or public transit... The list goes on and on.
How about you try to refute any of these individual claims I made instead of dismissing the actual historical reality just because you dislike my political views? Spoiler alert: you won't find reliable sources contradicting any of my claims and I can provide sources to all of it because I actually know what I'm talking about.
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No thanks.
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See, that's just cognitive dissonance. You start by saying it's only in theory, and when prompted with actual examples of this existing, you just shut your ears. I went as far as being honest on the particular points that were lacking, such as women/homosexual rights or climate/pollution regulation, but you're incapable of engaging with honest and reality-based analysis because it contradicts your absorbed anticommunist propaganda.
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NASA was always there and they couldn’t achieve what SpaceX has while simultaneously having a lot more capital to do so. I’m sorry but if there’s any proof that private sector’s self interest is a better driver of innovation than common interest SpaceX is it. This is a terrible idea that sounds like a good idea if you do not understand how good Musk was and is at cutting costs. That’s his actual real skill in business and is well documented. Doesn’t make him less of a prick but you also cannot downplay what he has achieved with this company.
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The agency that landed people on the moon so long ago most of the people involved have died if old age, and the event will soon pass out of living memory?
The one where when they let a single rocket explode, one time, rocked the nation, because their record was so close to flawless?
The one that constantly gives us new sources for scientific data?
Yeah fuck them. They never made a dick rocket.
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let’s not forget the agency that launched the probe that passed the edge of the solar system and is still functional and doing valuable things…… in the 70s
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and is still functional and doing valuable things in the 70s
Oh, wow, you might wanna sit down for this.
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which part? it’s still transmitting right? and they got useful and interesting data from it only a few years ago
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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.
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What are you talking about. They were saying nasa sent it to space in the 70s and it’s still functioning.
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Thanks for murdering a perfectly good bit.
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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.
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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.
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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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Absolutely agree with this but there is no denying the innovation levels at spacex are higher
Undeniably, they've been doing amazing work (at least from my rocketry technology peasant point of view).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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That's true but it doesn't solve the problem now.
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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.
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You guys are so stuck in the cult of personality. WE PAID FOR EVERYTHING SPACEX DID. IT BELONGS TO US.
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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.
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I'm sorry... you don't think employees who are achieving world firsts are allowed to celebrate?
You must be fun at parties
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You must be fun at parties
This meme is even more annoying than SpaceX employees being ordered to cheer.
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Let's say I bought you a car, I paid for it in full and then gave it to you, and in return you sometimes drive me around.
Let's say I get tired of this arrangement, should I repossess the car just to drive it into the ocean? What would be the point of that? Sure, it's rightfully mine, but what good does it do to destroy it?
"IT BELONGS TO US" is not a very compelling argument for arbitrary distribution.
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You paid for services rendered. By your logic you should eventually own your neighborhood grocery store because that's where you buy your bread.
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You’re talking to someone on lemmy, there’s a very high likelihood they think exactly that.
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Us? Do you own NASA? Do you have any say on how funds are assigned to NASA? No? Then it doesn’t belong to “Us” it belongs to the government, a distinct organization with different goals and motivations than “Us” the people.
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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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I hear you, why can't we be in that timeline?
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264 comments