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Comment by zardo | Hacker News Reader

> As rocketry [becomes] more critical for our space infrastructure, I feel like this makes sense.

The justification for denying workers rights they would otherwise have was the extreme importance of moving essential goods. We're not going to have famines if SpaceX has a month long strike.

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> We're not going to have famines if SpaceX has a month long strike.

But Ukrainian soldiers can and will die on the battlefield if Starlink has issues. We already know that it is vital for the Russians because their battle plans fell apart once SpaceX, the US and the Ukrainian government finally introduced a whitelist for terminals allowed to connect on Ukrainian soil. And SpaceX IIRC also operates a separate Starlink system for the US military.

This didn't pose an issue in the past because the DoD ran stuff on its own, no third party companies required... but heh, privatization rules...

There are also paths for the government to deny labor rights for military reasons.

That will come as well, this was just easier to do.

SpaceX is one of the few companies left that China isn't able to copy.

Yet

They have. https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/china-showcases-new-mo...

Nope

Not yet, at least not until the space rock mining begins.

Not then either, unless you like eating space rocks.

There could be a world where mineral supplies are exhausted/inaccessible to the point that extraterrestrial metals are needed to maintain the supply chains we need to feed billions of people.

Edit to say - that's probably a long way off / not likely

There could be a world where the muon radiation fallout of WWIV has contaminated all unmined terrestrial mineral sources.

> There could be a world where the muon radiation fallout of WWIV has contaminated all unmined terrestrial mineral sources.

All unmined terrestrial mineral sources? I don't know what the heck you're talking about, but that sounds like a world where everyone's dead. Pretty sure all the bomb shelters in the world are shallower than the deepest mine.

for all that elon is quite horrible by times, spacex is a meritocracy (that is hiring), and you have exactly one right in a meritocracy, which is to work harder and smarter. I feel that companys must be allowed to set up as meritocracys,(spitballing)for which I would add one twist, that they MUST hire a certain proportion of new people, on a first come first serve basis ie: anyone can give it a go, once.

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