Comment on We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink
qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
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
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.
This is a poor understanding of how the system works. SpaceX is company that provides a service. This service is open to anyone who wants to use it, but this happens to mostly be the government. The reason is because it’s services are cheap, safe, and reliable. SpaceX does what it does very well, and the government chooses their services because it’s economical.
NASA and other agencies provide a service, they’re not companies. They’re research agencies who’s job is to advance scientific knowledge and developed new technology. Their goal isn’t to create a sustainable business, but to conduct research that’s beyond the capacity of the private sector or individual researchers.
The public and private sector compliment each other. They do things that the other isn’t good at. It’s an ecosystem. Getting rid of one will cause the whole system to collapse… and that’s not a good thing.
Government agency starts multiple, multi-year, billion dollar projects, delays ensue, costs overrun, results are unimpressive. It has to relay 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
This is such a childish take. The private and public sectors are not opposites and they don’t contradict each other. They serve different purposes in the economy, and they compliment each other quite well. It’s an ecosystem where one covers the gaps of the other. We need both.
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?
NASA as well as the other American space agencies absolutely floor the global competition and it’s not even close. When it comes to China, they will always have cheaper prices because they are poorer country with a weaker currency, which means they’ll have a stronger purchasing power. In real terms, Chinese labor is much cheaper than American labor, Chinese materials are cheaper than American materials, Chinese manufacturing is cheaper than American manufacturing. China’s space expenditure is actually around as the US as percentage of GDP (both are around 0.5%), but China’s economy is smaller per capita and therefore they have a smaller budget to work with. This is why the US has the biggest, the most advanced, and the most flashy projects while China seems to be able to do a lot with less.
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.
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.
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. Image 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.
TronBronson@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You’re conflating Musk with his companies. He might be the one who founded them, but these companies run themselves. This goes for Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. The leadership, research, production, and management are all handled by company employees.
But that’s besides the point, regardless of how you feel about Musk himself, there’s clearly a place for private companies in this area. NASA and other space agencies are not businesses, they’re research agencies. Their job is to expand scientific knowledge and innovate new technology. They can’t run a service like SpaceX, which btw doesn’t only serve the government by also other governments and the private sector. It’s better for them to just outsource shuttle launches entirely to the private sector which is why they’ve been doing it for decades. It just so happens that SpaceX provides this service at really good price reliably and safely, which makes them the best choice. It’s symbiotic relationship. It’s an ecosystem where one sector compliments the other.
TronBronson@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Idk why everyone keeps talking like nationalizing Elon musk companies means changing them? It’s just removing Elon musk from them, and then reordering them to the public.
Also hello cyber truck called and that was Elon musk at the helm. He’s good for making good teams and bad decisions
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I mean companies can force him out by themselves if they’re pressured enough. Also all companies make unsuccessful business bets. What matters is that from a neutral third person point of view, these companies aren’t doing anything that they’re not supposed to be doing. They’re putting sectors of the American economy in danger of collapse, they’re not committing crimes left and right, and their services are satisfactory for most people.
qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
That government guy sure seems incompetent, I hope no one puts it in charge of a space company.
That private guy sure seems like he knows what he’s doing, I bet he’d be great at running a space company.
IDK where that’s coming from, I never said that, you’re just making stuff up now.