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I'm really tired of seeing this stupid argument that SpaceX is government funded. The entire aerospace industry is government funded because the government has
by mdorazio 6y ago
I'm really tired of seeing this stupid argument that SpaceX is government funded. The entire aerospace industry is government funded because the government has huge amounts of money and offers large contracts to many companies. By this measure, Palantir and many younger startups are also government funded. It's a meaningless statement. Bash SpaceX for their work culture and other issues all you want, but their business model is just fine.
- sidlls 6y agoAnd I’m tired of seeing people worship private entities whose entire success story is dependent entirely on government work. Not just funding, but work (e.g. past research). A business that lives only with government support is a de facto government entity. Sorry that facts offend you.
- pfdietz 6y agoYou seem to be confusing a program that exists because of the government funding the development, and a commercial program that exists in part because the government is one of the buyers of its product. Falcon 9 certainly benefited from the government buying launches, but the project was done with private investment. This is very different from how Atlas, Delta, the Shuttle, etc. were developed. NASA (and DOD) continues to buy launches from SpaceX, but that's no more a subsidy than them buying pizza from Dominoes.
- sidlls 6y agoYou seem to be deliberately ignoring the parts of my comments that aren't concerned with funding/money at all.
- pfdietz 6y agoYour objection seems to be utterly without merit, in that case. Oh noez, SpaceX sold rockets to NASA, so nothing it did is admirable! And most Falcon launches are not for the government, you know.