All the tech bros were constantly looking down on ESA, Arianespace and Ariane 6. Demanding that this perfectly good but slightly more costly platform should be thrown away and that Europe should make itself completely dependent on SpaceX+Russia instead. ESA and EU did not. Surely SpaceX would have gladly launched Iris2, the sovereign strategic alternative to Starlink. Right? Right?!
SpaceX and Starlink should have to be broken up. xAI’s purchase by SpaceX never should have been allowed. The contracts for NASA should have always required ownership of the investments made and the amount of rented tech never should have been allowed critical mass. Starlink should have been allowed a monopolistic ownership of its spots in space and should have been for forced to create an open interoperability standard from the jump.
The fact that “SI” is how SpaceX is talking about those AI projects shows they are very much still a government contractor even in this phase, just looking at different pots of money. Contracts that Musk’s massive ties to corruption should be viewed as last resort, at least until they cut him out of the company (while he is charged and tried for his corruption).
In the long run that makes sense. In the short term, they’re linked. SpaceX doesn’t have contracts to fill every launch, so they fill in the extra space with Starlilnk launches. Starlink doesn’t exist without SpaceX.
Starlink needing a subsidy for launches is only because they are operating as a monopoly. Competitors get flights just fine without it
So what I’m seeing here is an interesting situation. The main thing that seems to be an issue is that they’re ramping down the falcon 9 before people were really ready for that. That leaves all the people who were expecting that launch service to continue (Including NASA), stuck at the moment, possibly without a viable alternative. Luckily, while they may not be taking new contracts now, the article says they are still fulfilling the ones they have, so that’s good.
So yes, leaving people without a launch provider sucks for sure. But the fact that they’re shutting down falcon also demonstrates that SpaceX is expecting to be able to offer starship launches very soon. Remember, if they can’t put anything into space, they don’t really have a business at all. So this really does suggest that at least they think starship can totally replace falcon and that it’s almost ready.
Isn’t commercial space ventures great? They can set launches to “out of service” delaying or cancelling research and/or ISS/LEO resupply.
I mean like I said, that does suck. But we do have other options in the interim, namely Soyuz and Cygnus. If Boeing had decided to actually try to fulfill the commercial launch providers program there would also be starliner…
There are also a lot more options just around the corner, there’s the dreamchaser which looks totally badass, also JAXA is working on a vehicle and I read that the ESA is maybe working on 3 different vehicles?
Remember, by decommissioning dragon, all they’re really doing is removing the cheapest option from the market, and that’s the only reason anyone cares. The other options that have been available are still available.
Imprison Musk for treason and nationalize spaceX
nationalize as in purchase? or steal?
when countries nationalize a company they actually purchase it.
so you want the government to pay Elon literal trillions, for what exactly?
prioritize health care, housing and reducing inflation, ignore shitty people in orbit for now.
Pay him? Fucking imprison him for his DOGE crimes alone, then seize his assets and utilize them for the national good.
That sounds very communist. US doesn’t nationalize companies. US wages war against countries known for doing that (right now it’s Iran).
And yet, the govt owns 10% of Intel stocks.
And Elon is more like an Edison than a Tesla so there will be no inter-agency co-operation for sure.
nationalize the everlasting fuck out of this company.
Imagine if we’d funded NASA amd taxed billionaires propely to pay for it all along.
We had and have a national space agency. A private company has surpassed them and is now offering launches 90% cheaper than NASA. It’s cost overruns are also 97% less. If NASA were “funded properly,” we would be paying a lot more for a lot fewer launches.
Now imagine where it would be if Republicans hadn’t ratfucked the program’s budget for 60 years
found the spacex shareholder
Who would have guessed that spacex would squeeze nasa the very first chance they got. No one saw that coming.
They don’t have the ability to squeeze them. They are offering more launches, with fewer costs overruns, at a better cost.
NASA does not need SpaceX. Never will. What NASA needs is for the rich white assholes in DC to stop fucking them over with predatory contractors for five goddamn minutes.
And also proper funding
It’s why they need SpaceX…
They don’t have funding, their rocket program has been discontinued, the amazing reusable shuttle has been retired, and it’s all been done on purpose to make them dependent on the “private industry”.
Obviously if they have the right budget, they won’t need anyone. That’s the point.
the amazing reusable shuttle has been retired
In all fairness, the shuttle was more “refurbishable” than reusable. It needed to be almost completely rebuilt after every flight. Over its service life it proved to be both the most expensive and most dangerous way to get to space. It killed over 4 times more astronauts than any other spacecraft.
The shuttle was awesome, it was truly a great achievement! It made building the ISS possible. But… I’m glad it’s retired, we’re better off with more traditional rockets for many reasons.
we should nationalize spacex. it’s footprint to launch represents a real national security risk. it was literally built on federal contracts. it’s tech was pioneered by nasa and shittons of former nasa folk work there. it’s executive is erratic and unhinged and that’s a clear issue for national security. it’s utility in war - from ukraine to the middle east - needs to be controlled by the national security interests. Finally, spacex’s remit should be launch, not folding in x, grok, tesla and a bunch of other junk to inflate garbage stocks.
Broken up and and dismantled
The private industry is doing everything NASA was doing at 1/10th of the cost.
This is why you don’t privatize space exploration and research
Or maybe it is why you should not use NASA as a piggy bank for politicians.
privatize space expiration
Dear god
Fixed, I still can’t find a good mobile keyboard
Four of my faves (in the order of what I imagine to be norminess):
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.menny.android.anysoftkeyboard/
Boring, reliable, stable, mature, has almost every language or feature that a standard keyboard can have.
https://f-droid.org/packages/tribixbite.cleverkeys/
New, and its biggest feature is its sophisticated and configurable swipe typing engine. I am not a huge fan of swipe typing per se, but this is a solid keyboard regardless. Works well in a terminal.
https://f-droid.org/packages/juloo.keyboard2/
Works very well in a terminal, reliable, solid, mature, programmer oriented but great for casual use as well.
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.dessalines.thumbkey/
My current fave, it’s for single finger speed typing. Do you want to compete with touch typing using only one thumb? This baby is for you. This keyboard requires modifying your typing habits. It’s a pita up front, however, once you learn the thumbkey way, every other keyboard is almost obsolete after that. I do say almost, because some games benefit from ctrl-alt-fn modifiers and a qwerty layout, vim keys are easier on a qwerty, things like that. But thumbkey is a beast jusf for doing fast one finger input.
Futo if your on android ticks (most) boxes for me.
Thanks!
I tried it a few months ago, the issue is I cut the end of my right thumb off when I was a teenager so soft keyboards are a problem. I have issues on iOS but its generally better
Ah shoot, that would do it.
Guessing that swipe typing is OK? I remember way back when it was first introduced as a 3rd party keyboard on Android I started using it, but quickly gave up.
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.
Sure, those are all things the government could do in a world where this wasn’t the intended outcome.
NASA is being fed to SpaceX like a prime rib.
All of these are rational national plans, if only the administration is rational and working on national interests.
If it was built with public money, it should be appropriated to public use.
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.
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.
The majority of all funding for SpaceX comes from the government.
Well that’s kind of the definition of “funding”. What other funding would there be? If you mean revenue or income, I think that would be possible, but that claim could use a citation.
I believe SpaceX is funded through a combination of private equity investment, US government contracts, starlink revenue, and fee contracts with the ISS and HLS.
I can see your point with the technicality of the word funding. I was definitely using it as a catch all for all their revenue streams.
Ok, that sounds about right.
And with all that in mind, I do think government funding is a significant part of their total income, but I would be very surprised if it made up for more than say 20%. I’m trying to keep in mind that less than 5% of their launches are actually for NASA. And honestly, being a telecom/ISP has been a lucrative racket from day one with the bell telephone company. (So I’m willing to bet that starlink is their cash cow)
You are correct, Starlink accounts for about 55% ($4,290 million out of $7,814 million) of their revenue. A closer examination reveals government contracts, not consumers, is the fastest growing market from 25% to 40% over the course of one year (2024 to 2025) of total Starlink revenue.
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.
Musk also desperately needs that starlink revenue to continue until he can merge Tesla and SpaceX to cover for dropping Tesla sales.
Yeah that’ll happen. I’ll just stay standing while holding my breath until it does.
And who will make these restrictions? Until someone shoots trump, that’s not going to happen. Hopefully it happens soon.
NASA helped keep SpaceX alive when it couldn’t make payroll, then spent decades making it indispensable. Now Musk has discovered that launching AI servers pays better than launching astronauts. Outsourcing your space program to one billionaire was a bold leap for mankind, straight into a monopoly with rocket engines.
Not just that. They helped them create everything they’ve made. NASA freely helped them design their rockets and gave them their information on technologies that would help them. SpaceX should be, at least in part, if not wholely, publicly owned.
I don’t think it was intentional on NASA, Boeing couldn’t really deliver with starliner and SLS isn’t as good as they hoped either.
SLS is a congressionally mandated jobs program.
NASA was forced to use existing shuttle infrastructure instead of developing new hardware with partners. If they had been given freedom, I’m sure we wouldn’t even need SpaceX for anything.
@Zron @technology True, #NASA was forced to use the Shuttle engines but part of the reason was the US had no capability to design and manufacture a similar rocket motor. We were entirely dependent on using the Russian Proton engines. This was one factor in support for helping SpaceX — to recreate a U.S. capability to build rocket motors. At the time, we needed a new launch system engine for smaller uncrewed spacecraft missions. That decision had nothing to do with the Lunar/Mars human spaceflight ambitions. The alternative proposal on the table was to refurbish stored ICBMs for this purpose. The Earth-to-Orbit ISS resupply need came later. (I know this because I was there and involved.)
True, NASA is basically a jobs program — for the southern states; this is where most of the money goes. LBJ did that to get the votes for the appropriations needed and to keep the southern state Democrats in the party. Part of the political culture at NASA HQ is to “efficiently distribute money to Congressional districts.” The NASA centers in Houston and Huntsville had a corresponding sense of entitlement, at least when I was working with them at the beginning of the Constellation program. Now that Senator Shelby (Alabama) is no longer the ranking head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, maybe things will start to change in the human spaceflight area. Huntsville’s NASA centers had/have responsibility for the remaining space shuttle’s engines.
Both are failed companies, but Musk has more money on hand and can keep the lights on for longer.
I need a comic of a man struggling to raise a child, then the child grows big and strong (roided up and addicted to debt) then punts the aging man off a cliff.
You type like an ai, why
SpaceX needs NASA contacts now now than ever. The jerk’s AI business has been shoved into SpaceX, and that’s a money burning machine. Should NASA take one too many contracts away from SpaceX, the huge red numbers will come out.
I think this is the right take.
SpaceX may believe they’ve discovered a business model without NASA, but when the bubble pops they’ll be singing a different tune.
This is also a good reason to not nationalize spaceX as so many in this thread are calling for. I don’t want to be financially responsible for the AI mess they’re investing in now. Let them eat those losses.
Huh I wasn’t aware starlink is bringing in so much money.
In addition to the consumers using it, they’ve been making bank on commercial sales like airlines and cruiseships. But ya, it’s a money maker even accounting for having to renew the constellation every 5 years.
Also don’t forget starshield, so they’re taking in government money all around the world too
You’d think non us sales of starshield would plummet though until the trump admin admits they altered starshield in Ukraine, because its beyond horrifying if Musk altered starshield. He can alter starlink all he wants (but will have to face the backlash), but altering starshield should be the brightest red line ever drawn.
Not that trump altering it should instill confidence in allies either though
There’s a massive number of people for who the options are Starlink, or no Internet.
A lot of users here really can’t wrap their head around just how remote some people are. And then there’s vessels at sea etc.
yea we use Starlink at home, otherwise it’s ADSL that barely works -and I mean barely- and costs the exact same.
Yeah, we had ADSL where I live for a long time before we go fibre. Even with the exchange directly across the road from my house, it was painful.
We had Starlink for a few months when we moved into our house. It was a new build and we were one of the first in the neighborhood, so the telecoms hadn’t laid out wire yet.
It was honestly great. We’d get almost a gig down and never really had any connection issues unless it was heavy snow.
My in laws live in the middle of nowhere and they went from I want to say hughsnet to Starlink and it’s been night and day for them.
Starlink has also been huge for vanlifers wanting to remote in to their jobs, but live on the road.
Nationalize Space X after all these pedophiles are in prison, lol.
This result was inevitable the monent that the government decided to outsource their space exploration/scientific endeavors to a private company.
You don’t need to be Cassandra to be able to recognize 100% predictable outcomes.
