Ars reported in February that Blue Origin, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, is the leading candidate to buy United Launch Alliance.
I’m so sick of billionaires and their space shit.
Yeah, why aren’t regular folks building reusable heavy-lift rocket systems?
Regular folks aren’t sociopaths.
Some are, but they still don’t build rockets. I think there’s some other factor that’s important.
Why cant scientific progress not be a group effort with everyone doing their part according to their means?
Why does it have to be the greed addicts with the power to initiate human greatness and ingenuity?
Don’t we all want essentially the same things?
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sustainable production of (luxury) goods
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sustainable power production
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sustainable homes in a sustainable climate
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to evolve as a species and explore more of the unknowns in the cosmos
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I wish we were, through taxes. Though we’d probably just pay Boeing forty-eleventy billion dollars to never complete the project.
The privatizing of everything will continue, now get back to your wage.
ULA is already a private company. I don’t think the US government has done any of their own work to get to space since the shuttle.
The Space Shuttle was also a private company. United Space Alliance LLC owned the Space Shuttles, United Launch Alliance LLC owns the military rockets, Deep Space Transport LLC owns the SLS rocket.
“Privatized” space just means instead of the government hiring Boeing or Lockheed to design a rocket according to their requirements, picking contractors to build it, and creating an LLC owned by all the contractors to pay them, Jeff Bezos hires ex-Boeing and Lockheed employees to build a rocket to his requirements, and then sues the government until they agree to pay him to launch it.
NASA SLS?
The SLS is arguable, I’d say. The design requirements were set by the government, but it’s not built by NASA. It’s built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and ULA, all of which are private companies. I don’t think NASA has ever built a rocket, actual construction has always been contracted out to private companies. Even the first Atlas was repurposed from an ICBM built by Convair and General Dynamics.
And even if SLS is an example of non-private rocketry, it’s hardly something that should be touted as a positive example. Especially not when launch pace is your criterion.
Damn, wonder why ULA is up for sale. Boeing and Lockheed don’t want to play together anymore?
Bah, like the Romulans could do any better.
Imagine their faces when they’ll tell em it’s a work of fiction…