I've said for a long time now that the U.S. government needs to stop relying on SpaceX and I've got a ton of pushback. "He's not in charge of the company! He just owns it!" Yeah, well I am guessing he wasn't talking to Putin about electric cars or Twitter.
I mean, he absolutely was talking to Putin about Xitter as well, I'm guessing! This "champion of free speech" has pretty much silenced any opinions about Trump and his companies that he doesn't like. Nice little preview of the world we're careening toward where billionaires get all the money, all the power, and they can even direct the speech of media outlets...
Hard to stop relying on the best rockets in the world. Maybe Blue Origin or RocketLab will step up but it’s hard to see that happening.
Better to just force him to divest than to drop one of the very few good launch providers.
They only are the best rockets in the world because the U.S. government has been giving them piles of money to develop them.
That should not have happened in the first place, but I would like to at least see the government seize their patents since they were paid for by our taxes.
Take the company, keep the good people and make it a part of nasa.
If the US can force a sale with Tiktok then the US can force Elon to sell SpaceX for national security reasons.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how the space program works. NASA pays SpaceX for launch services. For other initiatives, NASA funds research initiatives through multiple companies for redundancy.
If we want to talk about pissing away money for rockets, how much money went to SLS development? Or maybe compare Boeing’s Starliner costs versus Crew Dragon.
Do the research and show me with numbers who the more cost efficient rocket development program is. I’ll wait.
The neat thing about government science programs, or any government program really, is that cost efficiency is not what drives results. If the best way to accomplish a goal is going to cost more money, then it costs more money. Thinking of the government as a business is as helpful as thinking about government budgets like a household budget. Governments maximize outcomes for their citizens, not shareholder value or profits.
And because you ended your post so unnecessarily rudely, so will I: stand up for your fellow man and encourage the de-privatization of space... and stop licking Elon's boots. We'll wait. ✌️
Nah Elon can fuck right off. He’s easily the world’s most colossal asshole.
How would you measure success? I’d measure it by number of objectives completed. Let’s take the commercial crew program as an example - how many successful crew launches has SpaceX completed vs. Boeing? How about vs. NASA? No American launch system compares to SpaceX in safety and capability yet. (Russia and China might be competitors, but there are political reasons why they can’t be chosen.)
I would absolutely LOVE to see more competition that obsoletes SpaceX. Maybe Blue Origin or RocketLab will step up? I don’t think SLS is really viable though.
NASA pays SpaceX for launch services.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
I think you're confusing NASA as a client of SpaceX with direct government subsidies and contacts. SpaceX has received billions and billions of dollars via contracts since 2015 (date of the article I linked). They've used that government money for their R&D to advance their tech and get to where they are today.
I'm not sure what part you think I'm not understanding since I didn't suggest the opposite of anything you said.
Fair enough, other than the idea that they shouldn’t have been paid for the services rendered. R&D is a service just as much as launch is.
I do agree that anything developed using public funds should be publicly owned. Good luck convincing the US government of that though… that would upset the corporate overlords.
SpaceX has been paid extensively for services not rendered. The funds that are currently paying for their Starship development were ostensibly for a lunar lander. And they're years behind schedule at this point. They haven't even started on the lander itself.
Thats like saying Bezos doesn't run WAPO and didn't kill the endorsement, its a nonsensical notion
His starlink --> SpaceForce --> Alphabet agencies pipeline is what scares me
More of this shit's going up next year..... Just in time for for the DPRK/PRC/Russian/Iranian escalations
Lets privatize top-secret comms and AO mission orchestration. That's not gonna bite us in the ass....
CIA needs to start doing its job and um... you know, protect American interests. The African scammer needs to go.
Security clearances are nominally the domain of the FBI, rather than the CIA. They tend to see themselves as a right-wing organization though.
I don't think they were talking about revoking the security clearance here. At least not directly.
One part of having a security clearance is also willingly signing away certain protections that you as a private citizen otherwise have.
So fwiw him having a clearance does open the door for additional scrutiny were anyone willing to look.
Yes, plus, he owns contracts with the government that likely contain classified information. It is just much easier to have him under a contract that allows them to just spy on him, in this situation.
Because money.
That's it. That's all. He's rich enough to do literally anything he wants. He could use the FBI as his own personal dead hooker disposal company if he wants. Welcome to America.
Can we stop declaring things "Too big to fail!"
Look at that asshat, skipping on stage with a shirt thats a size too small and a head filled with government secrets. Clown world.
Doesn't he already smoke weed. Openly? On YouTube videos? The exceptions made for him are truly staggering.
He claimed it was only on Rogan and that he normally does not smoke anyway. Depending on if you wanna believe that or not.
He broke federal law in a public setting. If one murder would be enough...why not this?
I'm pretty sure smoking weed isn't federally illegal, just possession.
Merrick Garland is a eunuch
Because cowardice runs rampant in Washington
I mean... He makes rockets for them. Wouldn't he have to have some clearance of some kind?
Security clearances have dependent requirements. His admitted and open drug use should have been the first thing to get his clearance revoked but as others have stated: in America you are only liable for the crimes you cannot afford to commit; as long as you have the money for it you can do anything here.
The bastard should be stripped of his US citizenship for illegally working in the USA.
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