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.
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.
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.
Fold it in into nasa.
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.
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.
Lets reach a compromise. Impeach Trump (successfully) and then take away SpaceX from Elon. That way things would be fair.
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.
Has US nationalized anything this millenia? I really don’t see that ever happening
Tax burdens for billionaires
Airport security was nationalized as the TSA. Aside from that no.
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.
Hang on a minute, equivalents of SpaceX and Starlink could have naturally grown out of NASA, it was the obvious place for them to come from but NASA did not show that innovation and nationalisation of them might dilute their abilities. For clarity I am not suggesting the innovation came from Musk, he has no science or engineering, his talents are grifting, showmanship and taking credit for other people’s work, he is a natural figurehead though and seemed quite clear thinking until he lost his mind.
NASA has had it’s funding cut year after year for decades. It’s far easier to innovate when you have money to back up the r&d and testing.
I wasnt discussing underlying cause, whatever the reason for stifled innovation in some fields possibly evident in NASA it is likely preferable not to pull independent labs into NASA that are having success in these areas.
Oh my god, please. Just to see the temper tantrum from Musk.
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.
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.
seize it via eminent domain.
Yeah. Let’s give Trump that power.
Quite ironic from people constantly accusing their political adversaries to be communists…
Well that’s not really the case. Conservatives will accuse progressive of being communists, and claim any social services are examples of communism. But it’s mostly those progressives here on Lemmy suggesting communist ideas.
So it’s not really ironic, just unsurprising I guess.
