After giving in to Putin/Xi’s demands to not provide starlink internet service over Taiwan, DOD officials are growing nervous about trusting Elon’s Space company with our national secrets
Aw man, if only there was some sort of space administration that you could invest some of your trillions of dollars into so that your satellites could be launched by a group that you can monitor and trust.
Revoke his security clearance. They did it to Oppenheimer for a lot less.
Ah, but he wasn’t a capitalistic wage exploitation illegal immigrant billionaire. That was his first mistake.
No, Oppenheimer was a…“communist”!! 😱😱😱😱
If you’re going to rely on private firms for your aerospace espionage endeavors, maybe factor in their leader’s sanity before you sign the contract with them.
I 100% agree with you but is there someone else in thr US who can reliably launch satellites? I know several othe companies are developing these systems but I don’t think any are anywhere close to Space X’s reliability or capability.
Space X is doing some awesome stuff and I hate that the awesome has to be tempered by the owner is a piece of shit.
In what would be an unprecedented move, the US needs to nationalize SpaceX in the name of national security.
They don’t need to go that far. Just force Musk to divest. (And prosecute him for any crimes he’s committed, but that might be asking too much of the government.)
It’s not unprecedented, though.
No, not everything needs to be nationalized. That’s a lazy excuse to solving problems and often just leads to different issues. Look at the fights we have for NASA’s current miniscule budget slice for a perfect example. Our government is dog shit at allocating and running departments like this, primarily because of politics.
Remember that neither NASA or the military actually build anything themselves, everything is outsourced to companies like SpaceX, Lockheed, Boeing, etc. So you’re advocating all of that to be brought into the government bureaucracy machine with no existing infrastructure to manage it, for it to be smothered to death by politicians trying to “prove” that government doesn’t work.
Instead, they just need to demand that Elon not have any decision making position at the company to continue getting contracts, blacklist him. As it is, daily SpaceX operations run without Elon. Gwynne Shotwell actually runs the company, regardless of specific titles. Elon doesn’t actually do the engineering work either, so while he may be involved in major decisions, it’s more the overall vision, the company would operate just fine whether he’s there or not. HE is the problem, not SpaceX as a company, and not the entire C-Suite team, just him. Get rid of him and the place runs just like it does now, works towards the same goals, and daily operations and contracts continue as normal,
No, not everything needs to be nationalized.
Good thing no one said everything, just a rocket company that NASA wouldn’t need to outsource to anymore since they would have the facilities to make all the rockets they wanted themselves.
Problem is that if SpaceX becomes part of NASA, then it’ll be like the space shuttle. It’ll need parts made by every small company that contributed to some random representative in every state, so we’ll end up with 300+ contractors all building critical components.
Why can’t it source those things the same way SpaceX does now?
It could, but that’s not how these types of programs get run. They’re as much about making jobs in specific areas as they are about solving a problem.
That’s not a very convincing argument. The U.S. has never nationalized a company like SpaceX before. We have no idea how it would be run.
I don’t find the libertarian “everything the government does is inefficient and corrupt” ideas very compelling.
You’re putting words in my mouth and exaggerating my statements. Just look at how the NASA manned space programs have run since the start, AND how they are currently run. Congress puts a lot of stipulations on how they are manufactured. NASA has a big problem with congressional interference.
Their science/unmanned programs are different, because congress is more hands off. Those are running just fine. The problem is that SpaceX is a huge cost and has a lot of manufacturing and jobs associated with it. That invites congressional interference.
Not only that, but they also have a large commercial presence already with the Starlink. The government doesn’t typically run things like that, so they’ll probably sell of the Starlink portion of the company.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s not libertarian-ism, it’s just how NASA is run. Once the budgets get into the billions, congress can’t keep their hands off it.
Yes, there are certainly problems with the Commercial Crew program right now, just look at how Starliner is run. We probably won’t get a capsule from Boeing, because they don’t have an incentive to finish, due to the fact that it’s not a cost+ program like the SLS is. SLS is also constrained by politics, they are required to use so many Shuttle parts, just to keep those sub-contractors happy.
they wouldn’t need to take SpaceX. just replace Musk’s ownership/control with Some Advisory Board™️staffed by project managers that know the fuck they’re doing. SpaceX wouldn’t necessarily need to be closed- just a change in ownership.
Granted, that’s pratically a pipe dream since congress has been intent on privatization instead of having NASA be in that role.
after about a decade, the government then sells its stake off slowly; probably reaping a rather huge profit while it’s at it.
he worships a russian asset. dont give him any access to defense
But he has money. If you’re rich, they let you do it.
Yet another reason billionaires shouldn’t exist. Dude is making international policy based on requests from foreign leaders, along with having conversations with them while launching the US government’s satellites of national security importance.
They should be, it’s a spectacularly bad idea.
In his defense, the GOP also answers to Putin, so it makes sense he would too.
why the hell would you be?
What even is the DOD/DOJ doing here?
Wtf is this article? If there’s a doubt about someone’s national security clearance, revoke it immediately until further review. Being anxious means nothing. Do or don’t.
“As much as I hate elon…”
“I hate elon as much as the next guy, but…”
“Look, I’m no elon fan, but…”
I’m sure you all know, but to be clear, when you see the above in elon posts… these are the beginnings of sentences from people who don’t hate elon. They are sentences from people who like elon, but think you will hate them, or not consider their opinions, if they say out loud that they do, in fact, like elon.
On a separate but related note, this is elon speaking at a hate-filled rally featuring a series of bigoted speakers, including himself. The rally very intentionally cosplayed an American Nazi rally that famously occurred at Madison Square garden in the 1930s. To emphasize how on the nose this all was, elon wore a specially made hat - a hat that very deliberately used an especially prominent font from the Nazi era. They are literally SCREAMING it in your face and tattooing it on their foreheads
elon has done nothing good or admirable with his life and elon will will not do anything good or admirable with his life. You can’t compartmentalize your opinion on this, he sucks, on the whole.
Jesus Christ.
