@maxkennerly
The worst part, to me, is its siphoning of funds from actual governmental groups such as NASA, a drain which is crippling the future of space travel and exploration in pursuit of wacky, pie-in-the-sky ideas. That's billions of dollars that could, for example, go into the teaching of STEM, but which has instead been earmarked for people who are already billionaires and want to play a round or two of real-life Kerbal on everyone else's quarter.

@theogrin @maxkennerly Musk is a horrible human being, but SpaceX is *cheaper* than any other launch provider NASA uses. And if the Starship system works (a big if), it will offer huge increases in space travel and exploration capabilities at even lower cost.

@michaelgemar @theogrin @maxkennerly
The belief that private companies will provide vital public services "cheaper" than the government has been quite the successful disinformation campaign from corporations for sure.

@GreenFire @theogrin @maxkennerly That’s true for many services (*especially* healthcare) but generally not for producing physical goods. The government doesn’t have factories for making the cars its employees drive, or to build the planes that it flies — it relies on corporations to produce those things. It would be hugely expensive for it to reproduce those capabilities.