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We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink
The slap fight between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has highlighted the absurdity of keeping so much of our space program and satellite internet infrastructure in the hands of a single oligarch.
As Stoller notes, by any reasonable standards that makes it “a monopolist in launching satellites.” And SpaceX’s operation of the Starlink service turns the existence of a heavily state-subsidized private space program (which is bad enough) into something far worse. Bannon, of course, is an archreactionary, and he’s only floated a temporary takeover “until we can get some stable management.” But why shouldn’t we just have this key part of the space program, which comes with militarily important satellite internet infrastructure, in public hands on an ongoing basis? Any story about SpaceX as a font of private innovation because it’s free from state interference would be hard to square with the economic reality of the many billions it’s reaped from its numerous contracts, some public and some classified, with NASA and the Department of Defense.
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