SpaceX and starlink are dead in the water and utterly useless until Musk has them taken away. As long as he’s running those, they’re just shitty companies with lots of empty promises
The mars thing is really a small part of what they do, although it gets the press. They are pretty much the only real game in town for satellite launches, and, I think ISS transport (especially since Soyez is Russian and there’s not a lot of good will going on there…). Even Amazon uses them for launches. It’s approaching monopoly status for critical infrastructure (we’re very dependant on satellites as a society now).
Mars is a labour of love for future ambition, but it’s not the main show.
Whether the root cause is historically poor NASA funding or not (I think there’s a strong argument for competition and private sector IF it’s properly governed, but it never is…), the fact is that we’ve created a situation where vast amounts of geopolitical control rest with a single person.
SpaceX and starlink are dead in the water and utterly useless until Musk has them taken away. As long as he’s running those, they’re just shitty companies with lots of empty promises
SpaceX is the main contractor of NASA.
SpaceX has Musk handlers to keep Musk away from SpaceX.
Don’t know why you’re down voted. They’ve been promising man on mars any day now for years.
The mars thing is really a small part of what they do, although it gets the press. They are pretty much the only real game in town for satellite launches, and, I think ISS transport (especially since Soyez is Russian and there’s not a lot of good will going on there…). Even Amazon uses them for launches. It’s approaching monopoly status for critical infrastructure (we’re very dependant on satellites as a society now).
Mars is a labour of love for future ambition, but it’s not the main show.
Whether the root cause is historically poor NASA funding or not (I think there’s a strong argument for competition and private sector IF it’s properly governed, but it never is…), the fact is that we’ve created a situation where vast amounts of geopolitical control rest with a single person.