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> "SpaceX does not really need Starship, that is more or less a bonus at this point."

Starship is the moat SpaceX needs to be developing today to stay ahead of where the Chinese competition will be in 5-10 years.

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Moats are for direct competition. China is not a competitor to spacex because the US government is spacex’s largest subsidy/customer. Put another way: nasa won’t be using Chinese rockets. Unless they bribe trump. Which could happen.

NASA ended up using Russian rockets because the Space Shuttle program got politically awkward. There is definitely a world where they'd use Chinese rockets.

> China is not a competitor to spacex because the US government is spacex’s largest subsidy/customer

SpaceX has loads of international launch and connectivity customers. China undercutting SpaceX would significantly compromise its prospects.

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