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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 1 week ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 116 points 1 week ago (13 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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  • [–] 27 points 1 week ago (7 children)

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

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  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 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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  • [–] 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

    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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  • [–] 4 points 1 week 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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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago* (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    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)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago

    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.

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