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 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.
Works is a strong word. It’s a better choice than dialup or Hughesnet, but that’s damning with extremely faint praise. If you need to rely on it you might be in trouble. There are still gaps in the coverage where you will be dropped for a while.
We should just fund NASA and let SpaceX and Starlink go bankrupt to competitors.
SpaceX has loads of capable engineers. If NASA gets a massive budget increase, they need to draw from that pool of talent.
SpaceX and Starlink basically have no competition, and if they did, said competitor would also need to be heavily subsidized.
These last few years they’ve had very little successes, but the point is it should stay competitive and not be automatically handed to these doofuses. Even the USSR maintained a competitive rocketry sector.
How has spacex had very few successes? Their Falcon 9 rocket is basically operating like clockwork. They launch more rockets than the rest of the world combined.
The starship failures are higher profile but even those failures are typical when testing new vehicles, especially one as experimental and complex.
They weren’t as typical with previous SpaceX models, Starship is easily their least successful project.
Since SpaceX is launching large quantities of commercial satellites, big whoop, do you also celebrate when companies buy back stocks?
Why would I celebrate stock buybacks?
Also spacex lost like 20 or so Falcons before their first successful mission. Maybe they will explode as many Starships, but they have hit that number yet.
It’s ok to hate Elon, and there are many valid criticisms to make regarding spacex, but they’re the best in the world right now and it isn’t even close.
The biggest issue with Spacex is that Elon needs to be removed before he ruins it like he ruined Tesla.
NASA hasn’t take the slightest risk since Challenger. They wouldn’t have accomplished 1/20th of the launch capability SpaceX has developed in the last 5 years.
Generally NASA doesn’t “develop” rockets per se, they commission rockets to specification.
It’s the specification process that’s the thing, nobody there would have gone out on a limb the way SpaceX has with their recovery systems. Look where they are on a shuttle replacement: the Apollo capsule with more room.
Has anyone considered funding NASA?
They made rockets that didn’t explode with duct tape and a TI-83 calculator.
Shouldn’t be incompatible with nationalizing SpaceX and Starlink. Just give it all to NASA, actually.
They didn’t, because someone got paid to write this article!
What “they made” 50 years ago is of little value now. Expertise matters, and it’s lost with time passing.
Still - yes. Nationalization is a bad solution because it gives the state power to nationalize. Seems a truism.
Just let NASA work in its normal role. Instead of replacing that with SpaceX contracts.
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
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.
Fold it in into nasa.
I disagree.
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You already have a government space agency. Maybe give them more funding so they don’t have to rely on space-x to get their stuff into orbit?
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There’s a national telecom network already in place. It at least has the potential to be faster and more reliable, if it isn’t already… At least compared to low earth orbit satellite coverage.
There’s no good reason to continue providing Elon or his companies with any government handouts. Pull that funding and give it to… I dunno, students who have more debt than homeowners with a mortgage… NASA… Literally anything that helps people?
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You have NASA FFS. Just fund it.
NASA is too beholden to politics… You can’t do 7 year builds and missions when the Senate flips every 4 years and has to kill everything the other side did on principle that it has a D or R attached to it. Everything is political.
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
Sure, he gets credit for building hype and getting investors on board. He’s a decent salesman, and probably decent at business in general.
I don’t care if he’s rich or not, he’s relatively harmless when it comes to things I care about. Trump, on the other hand, is dangerous because he seems to work off vibes and compliments, and that’s scary.
Arrest Musk on violation of controlled substances acts, file immigration violation charges, invalidate his ownership shares due to securities fraud, as he falsified education and naturalization forms.
Or just emminent domain the shit. The Law is just made up right now.
Such an effort would be likely to fail AND take longer than the current administration is likely to exist.
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.
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.
The GM situation was a more than a bailout, they took complete control of the company, took it private, liquidated some assets, then sold it off in a new IPO.
It’s not all that different from a private equity firm doing the same thing, the major difference is the legal protections the US had (e.g. it got priority over all other creditors). If the US wanted to keep it and run it, it could’ve.
If not Musk should be forced from his roles in these companies. You cannot be a defense contractor and do ketamine.
how can you trust a board that trusts such incompetence, for DOD projects no less?
failure up and down.
DOD is also responsible for what they accept.
Exactly. SpaceX was sunder scrutiny when he smoked doobie on a podcast. Now he is on drugs and nothing happens.
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?
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
knows how to make himself look smart
He said, talking about the guy who did a nazi salute on national television, intentionally, and then turned around and did it again for the people in the back. In case there was anyone who missed it the first time.
I’ve been saying this for years. the footprint that spaceX represents in national launch authority is out of whack to say the least.
The only reason SpaceX exists is because Boeing and Lockheed managed to compete so badly the only solution was to merge their launch businesses.
So we had one launch company, then spaceX made it two providers, now its back to one because B-mart is using antiquated launch systems (single use).
this isn’t incorrect. ULA is a fucking pork barrel of hideous proportions. doesn’t mean we shouldn’t nationalize spacex.
Best time would’ve been when he pulled that stunt in Ukraine, second best time is now
Now when a Putin simp is leading the country?
Oh my god, please. Just to see the temper tantrum from Musk.
