this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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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.
SpaceX and starlink have had very little success the last few years? What have you been smoking?!
Compared to previously SpaceX has been seeing more and more failed launches, Starlink is banned in a number of countries and there are already other low orbit internet satellite providers popping up.
You say "failed", engineers say "ok what have we learned and what can we improve/fix from this?". These launches are tests. Every single launch is testing every single part of the hardware and software. Tests failing isn't a bad thing, as it helps you fix problems and make things better.
They are years behind schedule and obscenely over budget on this testing. They're not even making new technology here, they are just cheaping out on the builds to funnel money into their own pockets.
You have any links to support that it’s just cheap materials causing the failures?
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.