We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

Yeah I mean the tax payers have literally already paid for all of both SpaceX and Starlink. The public paid for it, the public should own it.
- They're just following in the footsteps of Comcast. The FCC gave SpaceX/Starlink $885.5 million to provide rural broadband after they gave Comcast over $1 billion less than 5 years ago to do the same thing. Starlink actually works out there from what I understand, so I guess that's something.
  
  The main problem is that starlink is not a viable ISP like Comcast. Relying on low earth orbit is extremely wasteful as you need to constantly launch more and more satellites. Starlink gives their satellites a 5 year lifespan where fiber can go on for 40 years or more. There are 7,500 starlink satellites, so we're talking a constant replacement of satellites all falling into earth's atmosphere, not being recycled.
  Starlink is literal space trash waiting to happen.
  
  The FCC revoked that award before the money was handed over because starlink wasn't meeting the speeds they needed to meet for the deadline 3 years in the future and they didn't think they would make it. The speeds that money was supposed to help them achieve launching the satellites required to meet it.
  No one else had that made up requirement put on them in advance.
  The goal that was 3 years in the future, which would have been around now or early 2026, required them to meet their speed (100d + 20u) and latency (<100ms) goals for 40% of the 650k rural users.
  They had 1.5 million US customers at the start of 2025, not sure how many are part of this rural 650k but id imagine the majority are, and only 260k of the rural ones have to meet the requirements.
  Ookla did a post about starlink in Maine where it shows many of the users are meeting those requirements
  https://www.ookla.com/articles/above-maine-starlink-twinkles
  Median DL: 116.77 (over the required 100)
  Media UL: 18.17 (just shy of the required 20)
  90th Percentile DL: 250.96
  90th Percentile UL 27.17
  If Maine is a representative example, then they are probably meeting their 40% target of 260k rural users despite not getting the money which would have accelerated things and made launches more focused on meeting the goals.
  Edit: extra details.
  Edit: I was just looking up more info on the program, and the deadline to report would have been in January 2025, so it would have been with the 1.5 million users they had at the start of the year, not around now, or 2026 as I'd said. That Ookla report was December 2024. We should get a report from the FCC (this summer?) that outlines how many others met their respective 40% target.

You could always just fund the space agency you already have, instead of funneling money to a foreign billionaire.
- 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
  
  it’s all taxpayer money anyway
  Good point.
  
  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.
  
  So you wanna nationalize the whole telecom industry then?
  
  I'll settle for whichever one annoys him the most.
  
  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
  
  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
  
  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.
- That's true but it doesn't solve the problem now.
- 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.
  
  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.

Fold it in into nasa.

Has anyone considered funding NASA?
They made rockets that didn't explode with duct tape and a TI-83 calculator.
- They didn't, because someone got paid to write this article!
- If that was actually their expenditure I don't think they'd have their budget cut.
- Where's the grift tho? What's the angle? How will this enrich an uber-privileged pale bro?

See what we should do......is look to the french for inspiration on guillotine designs. Why would anyone not want to get rid of this asshole? Why would anyone like him?
- Man, that was worth the wait!
  
  Reverse accelerating space ship. I like the idea!
- They think he's a tech god because he has money to burn, knows how to make himself look smart, knows how to slave drive, and knows how to cut corners without pissing off the wrong people.
  
  At least, there was a time when that appeared to be the case

Yeah, let's give the trump administration the power to seize companies it doesn't like, that is a great idea that def won't be abused all the time
- The author probably forgot who runs the nation of usa.
- We no longer live in a world where our biggest fear would be the government controlling high level corporations and their operators.
  We now live in a world controlled by Sociopathic Oligarchs who can afford to create government level technology. Right now it's mostly tourism rockets and satellites, but now we see Skum weaponizing that technology, and/or using it as a bargaining chip. He has cut off Starlink in a war zone to benefit the county who defers to him, but is openly hostile to the US, and now he's threatening to cut off our access to the space station. He is using tech that WE PAY FOR with government contracts and grants, to pursue his own diplomacy, for his own benefit, and against our interests.
  Eventually, someone will start building and stockpiling actual weapons, perhaps even atomics. Then we will be asking why someone didn't step in and stop them before they became a bonafide threat.
  We paid for Skum's technology, and he gets to control it as a courtesy. Just the threat of using it against us should be enough reason to declare him a national security threat, confiscate his American-taxpayer financed businesses, and imprison him.
  
  Eventually, someone will start building and stockpiling actual weapons, perhaps even atomics. Then we will be asking why someone didn’t step in and stop them before they became a bonafide threat.
  Bruh this has already happened over and over again. Nobody stops them because the most violence empire on the planet is leading the way. AFAIK the USA is the only state to have actually nuked people.
  See also the zio regime. Imperial allies supreme.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
  
  We now live in a world controlled by Sociopathic Oligarchs who can afford to create government level technology.
  People have lived in that world for most/all of human history. Assuming you come from the west, you're coming from a place where for the last couple of hundred years it's been more cost effective to just buy the government instead. Is that better? Maybe, it's a little more stable. I dunno if it's good though.
- We are already fucked. The choices given are siding with Trump, and end up like Russia, or side with Elon, and end up like Cyberpunk 2077
  
  ..or organize, start/join unions, get involved with your local community and build up some real resistance that isn't based off obscene wealth, lawfare or media brainwashing. Once you have experienced something real, it's quite hard to understand how or why anyone would fall for the alternative.
  
  Only useless people side with those two.
  Stop being useless.
- Congress has always had this power. I'm personally for nationalizing telecomm companies.

Lets reach a compromise. Impeach Trump (successfully) and then take away SpaceX from Elon. That way things would be fair.
- Trump has been impeached successfully. Twice. What I assume you mean is that he hasn't been removed from office. That could be the consequence of an impeachment, but not necessarily.
- I honestly don't care about Elon, just get Trump out.
  
  For whatever reasons Musk has found himself as ceo of some wildly successful visionary companies. It has not changed that they are finally bringing the future to the present, disrupting old technologies in favor of newer and better, for a better world. And the musk from before his breakdown deserves a lot of credit.
  At this point I no longer care about musk either, but SpaceX and Tesla are critical. Or at least SpaceX is. Tesla has not yet finished disrupting vehicle manufacturing , but if we’re content to let Chinese companies go ahead, they’re ready and willing. Legacy manufacturers have been slapped up the side of the face, but if they’re still not awake at this point it’s on them

Has US nationalized anything this millenia? I really don't see that ever happening
- Tax burdens for billionaires
  
  Also losses. Gotta get that sweet, sweet too-big-to-fail bailout money.
- Airport security was nationalized as the TSA. Aside from that no.
  
  So it takes a spectacular failure of capitalist grifters? Check.
- Technically the auto industry in 2008.
  
  I mean if we count bailouts as nationalization, then now we've got like some kinda national "socialism" where state and corporate power have fused.
  
  Technically no. Bailout =/= nationalization.

Giving companies to the state doesn't always work well. However giving companies to the workers does.
- We've seen China give companies to the state, but have there been any large examples of giving companies to the workers?
  
  Post Soviet Russia. There’s a fun history lesson in there. They gave stock in all the companies to all the workers. Then a couple rich people got together and tricked all the people to accumulate all the stocks. Those people became the oligarchs. And we know what happened to the workers of Russia. They all died in a trench in Ukraine very happy story.
  
  I can't think of any examples. Taking over the company requires capital, which is the one thing that capitalists constantly extract from workers so they don't have any.
  The workers of xs4all tried when their new corporate owners, KPN, decided to dissolve them. But a combination of lack of funding and unfriendly courts prevented that. They did end up starting a new company though...
- True. We have a lot of public owned companies in Croatia, they are the most corrupt. Big comoanies are too, but not to that extent
- Ya like in Russia! When all the poor got tricked out of their shares and a billionaire class was made which continued to strangle the poor for 30 years
- Which... is mostly what SpaceX already is. It's a privately owned company, and the employees own a huge amount of the shares

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.
- 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.
  
  If your want proof that the wealthy live by a different set of laws, look no further than the time Elon Musk, ceo of SpaceX, went on a podcast and smoked weed.
  SpaceX has DOD contracts for launches, and somehow him blatantly violating federal law had no impact on the contracts his company fulfilled for the government.
  Do I think weed should be classified like it is? No.
  Do I think that everyone should be held to the same standard? Yes. And if anyone else had been involved in government projects while going on podcasts and smoking weed, they’d at the very least be fired.
  
  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.
  How long back was that? I genuinely didn't hear about that, but I believe that would happen. I tried googling "space x faa" but I'm getting results of FAA investigating rocket issues and approvals of rocket models.
- You should familiarize yourself with Telsat Canada's LEO plans. Should be complete in less than 2 years.
  Telsat Lightspeed

Oh my god, please. Just to see the temper tantrum from Musk.

Never gonna happen under republicans... or dems as they are sell outs too.
- We just need to allow them to keep the money. They like money. Give them 10% as a finders fee and the Yes vote will be unanimous

Starlink should not just be nationalized but internationalized.
It is internet for everyone on earth, not everyone in the USA.
Every larger nation deploying their own constellation would be a pointless waste of resources, and every smaller nation having to find reliable partner-nations to tap into for that internet access would inevitably lead to people ending up without access due to political games.
Low orbit satellite constellations are the perfect candidate for sharing, they would literally sit unused over most of their orbits otherwise.
- I think every larger nation deploying their own constellation would reduce people losing access due to political games.
  If there's only one network with the same topology as Starlink, then the USA, China, or Russia will end up making a bunch of rules on everyone else just like Elon does today. Look how the USA abuses centralized internet infrastructure already. Multiple overlapping systems would be wastefully redundant, but reduces the risk of censorship.
  We can't get along and can't have nice things.
  
  You want a truly multinational organization responsible for it, nothing that can be controlled by a single nation, even one as (ex)influential as the us.
  Something based on the UN perhaps.
  Combine that with making internet access a human right, to stop denying connectivity outright.
  Ideally then you could't enforce meaningful censorship, but more realistically you would route regions to their respective governments servers so they could censor as before on their territory.
  That would not guarantee free access to the internet to everyone, but should be an acceptable compromise to basically all nations.
  After that, other doubting nations could still pull their own constellation, nothing is stopping that.
  I would love if the internet program was uncensored, but that probably needs personal circumvention same as now, if such a program wants any degree of success.

We? No. USA can if it wants that shit.
- American exceptionalism is so fucking annoying. Their country is failing to a point hopefully this first person shit rightfully corrects to third person.
  
  American exceptionalism definitely sucks, but this is not an example of American exceptionalism. The source is an article from an American magazine, published for an American audience.
  
  It’s worse here than on Reddit, IMO.
- Global communities reveal the disgusting chauvinism of the nationalist "we". It's cult speech.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
- Agreed. But also commies believe that when the state takes something, "we" will get it (and they fail to see why states sponsor their useful idiocy)
  
  The point of communism is that things are state owned.

seize it via eminent domain.

Just having such wealth and thus power in hands of singular humans is risk to all of humanity. With musk you are but big enough drug fueled temper tantrum away from pretty important infrastructure coming crashing down.

We should just fund NASA and let SpaceX and Starlink go bankrupt to competitors.

Yeah. Let’s give Trump that power.

Step one Musk needs to be arrested and sent to El Salvador.

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
- Well that's not really the case. Conservatives will accuse progressive of being communists, and claim any social services are examples of communism. But it's mostly those progressives here on Lemmy suggesting communist ideas.
  So it's not really ironic, just unsurprising I guess.

This is what happens when you meddle in politics

Pedo-nation

why stop there?
do it to meta, twitter, amazon, etc
- Based? Then they can become regulated.
- Fediverse is superior to state-owned.
  Now that you mention it, we need an Amazon replacement too.
- But that's communism, and .world is famously against that

Dissolve them.
- In acid?

I would suggest that maybe you should leave SpaceX alone, if you want to still have a space program.
Maybe think about to nationalize healthcare insurance, it seems to be something more usefull
- Yeah wait until we we have someone in power who gives a shit about science and then re-fund NASA and nationalize SpaceX under the NASA umbrella. (Pipe dreams, I know)
- Yeah, let's leave all that power in the hands of one narcissistic egomaniac who's frequently going on ketamine benders. What could possibly go wrong?
- Who needs this bs space program anyway?
  
  The humanity does. Well, maybe not “need” it but deserve it. Finding out about the world around us is what we exist for.
  
  "Who needs NASA anyway", "who needs to go to space anyway" Very narrow-minded viewpoint. Like it or not spacex is cutting edge

Also the Tesla charging infrastructure!
- Nationalize the cars too, fuck it

Few words are dirtier to Republicans than "nationalize". They must be torn between following their god-emperor's hurt feelings and allowing Musk's company to be taken over by the government. The best I see them doing is cancelling all contracts and subsidies with SpaceX/Tesla and passing them off to its competitors.
- Just weird it in a way that is more capitalist lingo: " The govt will acquire a majority controlling stake and take the company private under it's direct control"

If we do, we'll definitely reach mars. I can imagine it now! Its 3055 and everything is totally fine now that we can escape to Mars in an inflatable city. A whole 4000 square feet of freedom soaring thru the sky with the last of us aboard ready for a whole new life and a good 7 in inflated cities for our children to live. She changes her name to Mother Gaia and His name is now Adam. One day in the distant future perhaps a large meteor would come roaring and reshaping our planet into livable space again.

No thanks, demolish Leon Hitler's space program and bury it. NASA should be the US leader for space missions and not a South African neo-Nazi sack of shit.

imagine how many more rockets we could reuse if the NASA subdivision formerly known as SpaceX did literally any of the standard, rigorous fault-checks.

NOW they complain about giving Musk money?
Most of the 38 billion was given by Biden.

Maybe... But never going to happen. Privitization and capitalism work the other way in the imperial core.

Nationalization is so communist thing to do.
- Doesnt make it a bad idea tho :D
  
  Yes it does.
- Okay 👍
- don't threaten me with a good time!
- Also every African despotic regime that has has ever existed.
  
  Stopping exploitation by Shell, BP & Friends isn't exactly what made those regimes despotic
  
  Despotic Ibrahim Traoré, using the money from nationalised formerly French gold mines to checks notes give $180.000.000 to farmers in farm equipment to industrialise agriculture. So despotic and antidemocratic.

Hang on a minute, equivalents of SpaceX and Starlink could have naturally grown out of NASA, it was the obvious place for them to come from but NASA did not show that innovation and nationalisation of them might dilute their abilities. For clarity I am not suggesting the innovation came from Musk, he has no science or engineering, his talents are grifting, showmanship and taking credit for other people's work, he is a natural figurehead though and seemed quite clear thinking until he lost his mind.
- NASA has had it's funding cut year after year for decades. It's far easier to innovate when you have money to back up the r&d and testing.
  
  Not just funding cuts, but it was heavily politicized and had its direction changed every 4 years. You can’t plan long term like that. It needs to be a government agency but not at the whim of the president or congress.
  
  I wasnt discussing underlying cause, whatever the reason for stifled innovation in some fields possibly evident in NASA it is likely preferable not to pull independent labs into NASA that are having success in these areas.

Do that, so that when the US Gov. falls SpaceX and Starlink does too.

have a government run space agency
a private company shows up
does everything better at a fraction of the cost and actually innovates
commies on lemmy: We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink
- Have a government run space agency, government constantly cuts funding. Awards contracts to incompetent military company to build over priced rocket. Crony capitalism and money disappears.
  Private guy steals all NASA talent from budget cuts builds talented team, innovates new technologies for rockets and then goes full blown Nazi and you love him even more.
  Great judgement cal here chief. You’re worse than the commies
  
  Have a government run space agency, government constantly cuts funding. Awards contracts to incompetent military company to build over priced rocket. Crony capitalism and money disappears.
  That government guy sure seems incompetent, I hope no one puts it in charge of a space company.
  Private guy steals all NASA talent from budget cuts builds talented team, innovates new technologies for rockets
  That private guy sure seems like he knows what he's doing, I bet he'd be great at running a space company.
  and then goes full blown Nazi and you love him even more.
  IDK where that's coming from, I never said that, you're just making stuff up now.
- A private company shows up that gets federal funding while the space agency gets funding consistently cut while having to support multiple, multi-year, billion dollar projects.
  A private company whose survival is 100% reliant on government money.
  Capitalists on Lemmy: private company is better just because it's private
  
  No matter how much you cut from NASA it always had more funding than SpaceX did and innovation in space exploration was dead until SpaceX came around.
  Nationalization will make SpaceX yet another bureaucratic, money waster for the government to maintain. By being private if SpaceX becomes shit the government can just drop them at any moment.
  Giving things to the state is a dumbass idea. Exhibit A: the entire current administration.
  
  Government agency starts multiple, multi-year, billion dollar projects, delays ensue, costs overrun, results are unimpressive. It has to rely on private contractors or other countries for the most basic things, spends $211 billion for a space shuttle program that goes nowhere and ends up costing $0.5 billion per launch.
  Private company goes from nothing to a successful rocket launch in 10 years for less than $1 billion, half of which is private funding. In the next 10 years makes rockets reusable, lowers the cost to orbit by 30x, launches a viable commercial service people are willing to pay for.
  Communists on lemmy:
  Capitalists on Lemmy: private company is better just because it's private
- With the amount of logical deduction, you just did here. You should just join the other commie I was posting under.
  “ I don’t really know what the fuck’s going on so I’m just gonna make up some shit to fill in the blanks because it makes me feel better.”
- 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
  Private companies: mostly disappear and waste shareholder money, like Virgin or like Bezos' attempts at space, with one company with public funding raking in those 80 years of publicly-funded research to itself, underpaying and exploiting its engineers, and lowering the costs at the expense of safety due to cutting in safety measures thay will never be tolerated when humans ride those rockets
  Dumbass liberal lemmitor: pRiVaTe Is ClEaRlY sUpErIoR
  Also, you're focusing on the space agency of the most corrupt developed country in the world: the USA. Maybe compare the costs with those of the Chinese Space Agency?
  
  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.

That would be national socialism right?
- I zi what you're doing there, and no.
- Edgy!
- No, nazis actually privatised a lot of formerly state-owned sectors of the economy
- Yes, but don"t say it to Musk's haters...
  
  Who doesn’t hate Musk these days?
  He’s pissed of everyone except the ones who want to be ruled by a technobro king.