Ronan Farrow writes in New Yorker that U.S. govt so reliant on #ElonMusk whose mobile Internet terminals #Starlink are vital to #Ukrainian military that it is now struggling "to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice". There is little precedent for the dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk from the future of #energy and #transportation to the #exploration of #space. #SpaceX is currently sole means by which #NASA transports crew from US soil into #space https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
@bespacific Just nationalize Starlink and have NASA run it. Reality check for the Musker
Given NASA's record, that sounds like the setup for a reality check for the rest of us and a great lesson on why nationalizing things has so frequently gone so poorly throughout history.
Why would we have faith in a political appointee being capable of running a Starlink in that bloated federal bureaucracy, that to emphasize the point, is subject to the brinksmanship and caprice of Congress?
At least Musk has his own skin in the game.
@volkris @kimhoar @bespacific just out curiosity, how is NASA’s track record so bad?
Well to put a point on it, NASA failed to create a StarLink type communications network that the US apparently really needs :)
But more seriously, NASA operationally might be fulfilling its mandates just fine, but the problem is that it's subject to political whims since it's part of a political organization.
It's in a really tough spot having to change mission every time Congresses and presidents change their minds, and it has to face the overhead of pleasing all of those different politicians to maintain its funding.
Maybe #NASA is doing the best that can be expected of it, but we keep electing people who drive the ship in ineffective directions.
