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SpaceX no longer needs NASA, and that’s a problem for America’s space agency: “NASA desperately needs SpaceX, and SpaceX knows it, and Elon knows it.” (arstechnica.com)
submitted 22 hours ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 94 points 21 hours ago (8 children)

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.

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  • [–] 16 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

    If it was built with public money, it should be appropriated to public use.

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  • [–] 4 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (2 children)

    They generally weren't given money.

    They won contracts and provided services. They did it almost entirely with fixed base price contracts as well. None of the cost plus, which was typical in space, and leans more into handouts as people intentionally try to milk the government by going over.

    Its like if the US government buys billions of pieces of paper a year from paper suppliers and you expect them to own the paper companies that sell them the paper because they took government money for a sale. Many even own their own mills, but thats now a government mill since the government bought their paper.

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  • [–] 9 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 child)

    This analogy falls apart in several ways. The majority of all funding for SpaceX comes from the government. This isn't like a paper company that has massive contracts outside of the government. Furthermore a paper company is a dime a dozen and probably not a national security issue like the sole provider of needed launches.

    Governments would probably never need to take over a mundane company like a paper producer, but they most certainly would need to take over a critical supplier of national security needed services because it is run by a space Nazi.

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  • [–] 1 point 16 hours ago*

    Doesn't really matter if the government is the main source that gets it off the ground.

    Maybe a upstart paper company was able to snag a contract and they could undercut existing companies because they found an abandoned mill that they got for pennies on the dollar.

    National security is definitely an issue, but again nothing to do with how it was built. Thats entirely outside how something is funded.

    Edit: just to clarify the majority of all early funding. Today its starlink, government money isnt the main thing now.

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