Some of the Spacecraft companies are interesting, and they largely do very different things so don't directly compete. Blacksky, Maxar, Planet etc.

SpaceX bringing down the cost of putting things into orbit, even moreso with Starship, should actually be good for these companies.

I absolutely would not invest in any launch company other than SpaceX though. Not even Rocketlab, which I think will survive but not do crazy well.

Honestly I think the winner is going to be who can actually make the most rockets. Rather than who is the cheapest, achieves reusability or has the best technical metric. As Elon says, Manufacturing is harder than Engineering.

There's a dozen of these smallsat launch companies, it was always obvious that, including competition with SpaceX rideshares, the market can't support that and that a shakeout was inevitable.

Rocketlab and maybe one other will come through.

The Satellite companies are a better investment IMHO.

If there's one takeaway I'd like you to have from this conversation, it's that being the lowest bidder in competitive, fixed price contracts is a very different thing from a subsidy.

Because subsidies actually do exist. So do cost-plus contracts, which, without oversight, actually are similar to subsidies.

These are important, basic principles of how the government spends money. Lack of understanding them is ultimately an impediment to having a cost effective government.

Bro, SpaceX sells the dishes at a loss. The Verge and other outlets have done teardowns to confirm this. And USAID says all they did was buy dishes.

If by "subsidies' you mean being the lowest bidder in competitive bidding... and therefore actually saving the government money compared to competitors in all SpaceX's contracts, that's a pretty weird definition of 'subsidy'.

Sitting back and letting China take Taiwan without defending them seems like a bad idea, but I admit that predicting what US political leaders might do in response is pretty hard.

Sorry, did you miss the part in the last comment where I said this, or did you just want a source:

>They paid for a few dishes, but even on those dishes SpaceX has paid for service for a year now. They are losing money on those, they could have gone to paying customers.

Here's the USAID official spokesperson's statement. Rather then your editorializing from Jeff Bezo's outlet.

>“USAID has purchased Starlink terminals, but has not paid for Starlink service,” the spokesperson said. “Like many mobile network markets, the most important cost factor is not the device itself, but the service, which SpaceX is offering for free for all devices.”

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/22/ukraine-internet-starlink-elon-musk-russia-war/

>Also, comparing China and Russia is laughably out of touch.

Yes, China is obviously a bigger threat. The Ukraine war proves what many had already said, that Russia's capabilities have been greatly exaggerated.

Yeah before Artemis they tried to force NASA to use it to launch stuff like Europa Clipper which would have been an astounding waste of money when Falcon Heavy can do it...

The U.S. government never paid anything for Starlink Service in Ukraine.

They paid for a few dishes, but even on those dishes SpaceX has paid for service for a year now. They are losing money on those, they could have gone to paying customers.

And I wasn't even talking about that. I was talking about development costs. But thanks for bringing that up, it's yet another instance of SpaceX helping the U.S. without adequate compensation.

As for a potential Taiwan invasion I suggest you search Google for recent news on the subject. I assure you the military does not consider this possibility to be insane. Heck, people thought the idea of Russia attacking Ukraine was insane.

And SpaceX also self-funded the development of Starlink, which has been vital to Ukraine's war effort and would be similarly vital to the U.S. and Taiwan in the event of a war with China.

And they're still losing money on it, clearly more money then they get from DOD launches.

The DOD is paying for the development of ULA's Vulcan rocket and engine, which they also did for ULA's previous rockets... Nobody paid SpaceX anything to develop Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, or Starship.

Furthermore, every gov't contract SpaceX has won, has been competitively bidded with them the low bidder, and fixed price.

Seems like the government is getting a pretty good deal. But I'd be fascinated to hear arguments against.

I like to bring up the fact that their flag literally has 'Curse on the Jews' written on it. There's always people trying to defend this by saying something about Israel.

The thing is, their flag also says 'Death to Israel'...

Good work then, on spreading the word through Reddit comments.

Damn, you should go to the CIA with your intel.

What does that say about Bezos who put in enormous effort to poach her for Blue Origin?

Weird stuff. Bezos actually put in huge effort to poach her for Blue Origin while he hangs out on his superyacht.. Wonder what that says about his space knowledge.

He's referring to Tesla, for a long time Biden sorta pretended they didn't exist and conspicuously failed to mention them when while mentioning Ford, GM and other companies making electric cars.

Can't really do that with SpaceX though as they bring Astronauts and Cargo to the ISS and are making the lunar lander, and Starlink is important for Ukraine.

Interesting, I did not know Pesquet is from Rouen. There's a certain poetry in that given Rouen was the initial land grant to the Norman Vikings.