this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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If Starship cost $3 billion over its lifetime and was entirely funded by US taxes, it would cost, on average $10 per citizen. Note that that is over the lifetime of the project and not by year. Is this the taxing to hell you're talking about? Not NASA's $25 billion this year alone (and that's one of the cheaper budget items)? Do you need to start a GoFundMe to help you out with that?
Now how am I supposed to take you seriously when the easiest statement for you to fact check is so hyperbolically incorrect?
How am I supposed to take you seriously when the guy running SpaceX is a speedball addicted nutjob with a goddamned Hunter S Thompson esque box of various uppers and downers and hallucinigens on his person at all times for at least the last solid year, who is notorious for mismanaging the shit out of every thing he's been in charge of in the last 10 years, who just fucking decommissioned all Dragon capsules because he's having a very messy, very public breakup with his former bestest political friendo?
To refresh,
Me:
You:
Oh wait that's not actually what you said, but it is what you meant to say by choosing to ignore almost every single point I brought up.
Oh and I corrected some of your errors as well.
5 days.
It took 5 days for what I mentioned, and you dismissed without comment, to become extremely relevant.
You keep proving that you have passion, but no facts to back it up. I'd be perfectly fine with SpaceX being nationalized, but Americans believe that's communism. SLS is not only old tech, it's old tech that isn't being produced any more. Using existing supplies, they have at best 5 launches, at slightly less than has been spent by SpaceX on the entrie Starship program, for each one. If you want six, well, you have to reopen plants in over half of the states, as well as train staff, etc. Even if the next 5 cost as much as the 5 they can build now, and you'd be a fool to make that bet, it would still cost 10 times what SpaceX has spent so far.
And no, I don't consider competitive contracts to be subsidizing companies. And the reason SpaceX is doing as well as it is is likely because of people actively working to keep his hands off of it. This may be the only good thing Twitter has accomplished. As for the Dragon capsule ending, I'm pretty sure that technological cat was let out of the bag.
Im not giving you every single possibly relevant fact because there are thousands, it would take me a day or two to compile an 80 page advisory report, and I'm used to being paid for such work.
...
SpaceX is not going to be nationalized, Trump is a fascist, not a leftist.
Fascists facilitate the corporate/business class, they do not disband them and absorb their assets.
SpacrX is going to be cut loose, and then wither on the vine. Maybe some of it will survive, but its either gonna have to go public and/or do even more investor startup rounds... or its gonna have to massively scale back without NASA contracts.
...
You seem to think thag I think that because I don't like Starship, I must think SLS is good in comparison.
No, I don't. It has also been a mess, due to other MIC contractors also fucking shit up and massively overcharging with cost plus accounting bullshit.
Trump already wants to gut NASA's budget in general, and stop the Artemis program after Artemis III... so they're fucked too.
The US is neutering its own space capabilities in general right now.
...
However... Artemis I, you know, actually worked. It accomplished its mission.
Starship+Heavy Booster has been in development for about the same amount of time, and has ao far not accomplished a single, actual mission, of any utility other than 'iterative development testing.'
The SLS system has literally gotten an orbiter around the moon and back, meanwhile Starship+Heavy Booster has a proven maximum suborbital payload of 'a banana', and has now multiple times caused major international incidents requiring relevant airspace to be immediately shut down, as well as rain toxic rocket debris over or near populated areas and fragile ecosystems.
Starship + Heavy Booster hasn't even achieved an actual orbit yet, all of its flights have been suborbital.
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As for you not considering government contracts and grants to be subsidies... they are, you are just flat out wrong.
Why are a bunch of American small farms suddenly facing bankruptcy?
Well one reason is that the government subsidized them by buying a good chunk of their produce, at prices significantly above what they'd fetch on the open market, and then shipping it across the world as food relief as part of USAID.
But Elon cancelled that, so now kids in Africa are starving to death, and American small farmers are going extinct.
Go learn some actual macro econ theory, or if you wanna pay me for lessons I can tutor you, what with me having an actual degree in Econ and all, and better things to do with my free time.
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Finally, your provided link referencing the Dragon capsule is a link to an article about a Chinese startup developing a rocket intended to be landed/captured with chopsticks.
I do not see how these two things relate to each other... the Dragon is launched by a Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy... those do not involve or require or use a chopstick method to land/capture them, as they do not need them.
I still an unconvinced by the concept of a chopstick landing in general.
The purported purpose of this is to increase the turn around time of a rocket caught in this way.
To date, only a single rocket that has ever been captured by chopsticks has ever been turned around at all, in any amount of time, and reflown.
That was Super Heavy Booster B14, which RUD'd when it initiated its landing burn in IFT-9, and is uh, no longer with us.
Sure, maybe the Chinese will pull off an actually reusable system with this approach, if they do, then I'll eat crow on that.
But I still remain skeptical of the entire approach.
There were a lot of skeptics that the Falcon would fly, and be reusable, and it has dramatically reduced cost per kg to orbit.
Also, I'm not sure where you got your Econ degree, and I'm not sure I care. Competitive contracts aren't the same as subsidies. If the government says they're going to do something, say build a tunnel, is it a subsidy to the construction company who wins the contract, or is it payment for services rendered? And actual subsidies, such as growing food that can't be sold on the open market at the price the government is paying, can have benefits to the country, such as national security or funding soft power with other nations. So, is your big problem that the government shouldn't be supporting space development, or should instead be doing it internally for more tax payer money? Are you against EVs being promoted by the government making the technology more feasible for car companies? If so, why are you pissed at Musk for taking advantage of these subsidies that one could argue help the country and the world, and not at least as pissed at the other car companies for not getting on board and doing what they could to also access those subsidies?