Elon Musk "secretly" disrupted a Ukrainian sneak attack on a Russian naval fleet by turning off Starlink's satellite network near the Crimean coast last year.
Seeing as musk could unilaterally act in a fashion contrary to US foreign policy, in the interest of national security the government should take control of the company then.
Obviously that would be an extreme step but… how bad would that get?
That’s basically a variant of eminent domain, but I suspect it would be a hard case to argue. Ukraine chose to use Starlink, and the US governments power to invoke eminent domain is based on the common good provided to the US public via the seized property. It’s arguable whether the US public would see much if any value from the US government running Starlink unless they’re going to start providing free service to US citizens. There’s also the problem that there are plenty of other options that don’t require seizing of property.
NASA is basically being forced by Congress to funnel SLS program money into select contractors against NASA’s own assessments. I don’t think you want any of their hands near SpaceX if you want it to stay operational.
Seeing as musk could unilaterally act in a fashion contrary to US foreign policy, in the interest of national security the government should take control of the company then.
Obviously that would be an extreme step but… how bad would that get?
That’s basically a variant of eminent domain, but I suspect it would be a hard case to argue. Ukraine chose to use Starlink, and the US governments power to invoke eminent domain is based on the common good provided to the US public via the seized property. It’s arguable whether the US public would see much if any value from the US government running Starlink unless they’re going to start providing free service to US citizens. There’s also the problem that there are plenty of other options that don’t require seizing of property.
The US could just nationalise it. SpaceX is basically running on government money anyway, just fold it into NASA.
NASA is basically being forced by Congress to funnel SLS program money into select contractors against NASA’s own assessments. I don’t think you want any of their hands near SpaceX if you want it to stay operational.