An Elon / Jeff space willy-waving contest about who gets to be Space Bro Alpha seems like a net win for humanity
She’s a super hero in my book. Musk had the dream but she’s turning it into reality which is the hard part.
The people who make it happen are the ones i most admire. It takes a village, i mean you're not getting anywhere without the vision and foresight of people like Musk. You're also not getting anywhere without a leader assembling the right team (which i think is Musk's real talent) but, to me, i most admire the people on the ground making plans, managing/coordinating, and turning wrenches.
In case of SpaceX and Tesla they claim outrageous things with every intention to deliver.
Sometimes they are right, sometimes not. It's up to investors to know the difference.
I dont see how Jeff or Elon are oligarchs in the sense of russian oligarchs.
The Intercept isn't exactly known for... neutral... reporting.
"Agency managers originally hoped to award follow-on HLS contracts to two of the companies to encourage competition and protect against the possibility of major problems or delays that might affect one company but not the other.
But Congress only allocated $850 million in NASA's fiscal 2021 budget for lander development, about one quarter of the amount the agency said it needed to have a new vehicle ready by 2024.
Given the available money and projected future spending, NASA "down selected" to a single contractor — SpaceX — deciding the California rocket builder offered the most attractive combination of cost, technology and management expertise."
Neutrality may always have some element of manufacture, but that doesn't mean it's equivalent to intentionally trying to generate partisan outrage. This isn't a "bailout fund for Jeff Bezos" — word-for-word quote from the headline of the Intercept article! — it's just NASA continuing to try to get budget for the projects it wanted all along, so it can have redundant contractors like it did with the commercial crew program and avoid getting stuck with monopolist pricing (and monopolist poor performance) like it nearly did with Boeing.
While it’s a fun jibe to throw at them it’s a completely different thing to just being insanely wealthy through actually doing something effectively (if sometimes immorally)
Still, the term implies politics... not just money. I would also hazard that it implies hereditary power. You could argue that dynastic politicians are oligarch. I'm not really disputing, just pondering.
Ultimately, for both Russians and Americans, oligarch is a (usually derogatory) analogy. It's not a formal oligarchy. We could also say aristocrats, which is more appealing to me.
Also, there's an idea that all governments, or systems of power are oligarchies. No matter what the formal system of government, some group of powerful people wield a lot of power. Rich people, religious leaders, senators, backscene power brokers, generals...
Bezos or Koch or Hamm or DeVoss can't move their American levers as far, but the overall output is quite substantial compared to what Abramovich can achieve with his.
Even if you think they shouldn't gamble with their money I find it hard to argue there was no damage done.
Propping up a bubble destined to pop is bad too, so why get involved?
To the second point, you should look into the definition of monopoly. Amazon is a behemoth, not a monopoly. And they have created immense value.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)#Controversies
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Lawsuits_and_contr...
I did not request every incident, but just one concrete example that would validate the quite strong characterization.
In the United States being sued is not a proof of guilt, it's just a proof of being sued.
This is unlike in some other countries, where the guilt of the person is presupposed and the purpose of the court ruling is just to make it official.
SpaceX gets almost $900 million in federal subsidies to deliver broadband to rural America https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/tech/spacex-starlink-subsidie...
SpaceX just won $885 million in federal subsidies to expand Starlink, Elon Musk's satellite-internet project https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/spacex-just-won-do...
In addition to that SpaceX is government contractor.
SpaceX and Blue Origin are the next Boeing/Lockheed. Government gives them both money to R&D so that they don't have just one innovative supplier.
Tesla is a great example of government project. Tesla has received $3-4 billion in subsidies.
edit:
SpaceX has received other direct subsidies. NASA has given seed money and development funding for Dragon, Falcon 9, engines and demonstration launches ($248M at least) https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/453605main_Commercial_Space_Minutes...
$3-4 billion = 3 weeks of federal food stamps spending
I know which I think is the better government expenditure
A hand out is bailing out failing auto makers, forgiving debt arbitrarily, etc, etc.
We're in a "Give a man a fish/teach a man to fish" type hypothetical now.
People are engaged in heated normative[1] discussion with little or no facts. I am not. Even saying Tesla is a great example of a government project does not mean it's good or bad. Just a great example.
I just wanted to add some facts to the discussion. Not enough, but some. I think it would be great to find out the total indirect and direct subsidies these companies receive, but I could not find it.
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1: Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good or desirable or permissible and others as bad or undesirable or impermissible.
It's important to note that SpaceX is different from most space-related government contractor in that they mostly sell a packaged service, whereas other contractors before it had development contracts. Boeing / ULA etc were paid to develop launchers, SpaceX sells launches. (I know that SpaceX benefited from subsidies towards achieving that, but their competitors did not achieve that or even tried.)
The key difference is that they are not (entirely) incentivized on sucking on the subsidies teats. That the US government pays them to provide a public service makes them more akin to any utility than to typical government contractors.
I think this is the same way as Boeing and others get their money for development.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, New Horizons, Starliner crew capsule ... basically all NASA and DoD launches come from ULA.
There's no guarantee that taxpayers money would be used for a better endeavor if it was used otherwise.
And the very definition of better endeavor is pretty shaky in any case.
So one can debate on whether optimal resource allocation is done by the government or private individuals, but it is not 'surely' better to have the government allocate the resources.
Will there be any element of cheap subsidised access to space in return for the government's investment?
Or is it exactly what it seems to be - a no-strings handout?
As for better endeavours - perhaps you're underestimating the economic utility of a single payer health care system which wouldn't bankrupt 500,000 individuals a year. (For example.)