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What do you guys think? My initial thought is that it sounds like a moronic idea. A lot of countries near the equator could offer better prices - French Guiana
by Mauro333 3y ago
What do you guys think? My initial thought is that it sounds like a moronic idea. A lot of countries near the equator could offer better prices - French Guiana or rest of South America.
- nabla9 3y agoAfter reading the article and reasons for the tax, I think it's a good idea. What do you think about the reasoning behind the tax?
- korantu 3y agoDepends on FAA involvement in each launch. In case of an airline FAA controls each flight for hours. In case of a rocket launch, most trouble comes from "don't go in that area" type of commitment, plus investigations of something went wrong. Given that each airline can keep hundreds of machines in the air at any one time, and rocket launches happen weekly at best, paying 10% of the overall fee does not look fair. Would be happy to know what aviation specialists think.
- dsq 3y agoSounds like telling the goose laying golden eggs to start paying for the water it's swimming in or move to another pond pronto.
- silotis 3y agoFrom a legalistic standpoint it makes sense: the FAA spends a lot of resources regulating SpaceX's activity, therefor tax SpaceX to pay for it. From an economic and geopolitical standpoint it's clearly a poor choice to introduce an extra tax on something which drives a large amount of economic activity and is an important strategic asset.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoAfter actually reading the article, if US launches require using US ATC/airspace management resources, then having space companies offset some of that cost is reasonable. If they go elsewhere, they aren’t using that infrastructure anyways, so no need to offset it.