Critical infrastructure: duplicating SpaceX

After listening and reading Ronan Farrow's exposé on Elon Musk and the immense power he holds both over the Ukrainian war and over critical national security capabilities, we need to duplicate the SpaceX network of satellites, potentially improve them, in a way that we can control that cannot be arbitrarily removed on the whims of a single person.

This would be important even if SpaceX were run by someone else, although not nearly as crucial. US defense contractors may be greedy, but their loyalty is generally not subject to question, not the least of which is because of their financial dependence on the United States government.

But Elon is mentally unstable, megalomaniacal, and also disloyal to Western values. It's fair to criticize past US policy in underinvesting in NASA and space generally for creating this vulnerability. But we cannot be vulnerable to someone like him, whose values are not the values of our nation.

 

That would be a welcome development. No fan of Bezos, but not the same risks

 

By the way, I read about half the article and then put it down but I want to finish it. I've now listened to two podcast interviews. It really is fascinating. And ronan's main point was that late stage capitalism has let individuals amass too much power. Nation states are having to defer to Elon because they have deferred public investment in critical national security areas.