

SpaceX Sues Government to Break US Air Force’s National Security Launch Monopoly - kmfrk
http://www.universetoday.com/111535/spacex-ceo-elon-musk-sues-government-to-break-us-air-forces-national-security-launch-monopoly/#more-111535

======
rayiner
A lawsuit with an announcement at the National Press Club? This is a man who
isn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

Every time I think I couldn't love Elon Musk more.

------
colechristensen
Everybody wins when there's real competition in space.

------
sbierwagen
SpaceX is a private sector success story-- as long as you ignore that they get
most of their revenue from government contracts. For a libertarian, he sure
likes taking tax money.

~~~
rmthompson
I'm not sure how you think a person's political leanings are even a little
relevant to this discussion.

~~~
bertil
A CEO's leanings are relevant when they are clearly stated, and inspire a
large part of his strategy -- to take a similarly controversial subject in the
US, imagine the CEO of a gun-maker “against weapons”; that would come off as
hypocritical.

I don’t think that there is such a thing as being “against weapons” though.
Some people don’t think that one should profit from the use of deadly force;
in that case, not using a significant portion of that company’s profits to
repair damages from misused weapons would be callous. In most cases, weapons
manufacturer are direly aware of the issue with what they sell, and try to
make better quality devices to prevent them. Namely, a policeman friend told
me that Glocks (could be another brand, I know very little about firearms)
were appreciated by her colleagues who do a lot of pursuits because they don’t
tend to accidentally fire when they drop from their holster, a rare but
potentially tragic event. Glock makes money from that fear, hopefully invest
to mitigate it.

I know government processes better, and as someone who could be seen as a
socialist, I agree with Musk on one thing: government is expensive. Unlike
him, I think it’s generally cheaper than private companies or charity.
However, in the industries where Musk operates (transport), his
entrepreneurial talent makes his contribution much cheaper. He doesn’t like
public money to be wasted — that’s his publicly stated “political leanings”
and one that has motivated SpaceX existence. I don’t think it’s very
controversial, actually (no one likes to waste money) but it is relevant. What
he asks for is to have the ability to lower it.

Therefore: yes, his leanings matter. In that case, and probably a majority of
his projects that are government-funded, they are so because it is cheaper to
have Musk’s company do it. Which is good. I’m not a US tax payer, so I
shouldn’t care so much, but I would say: there isn’t a contradiction with
trying to improve what you think is broken. If he was asking to prevent
competitors from entering the market for government-contract, there I could
see an issue.

------
samstave
This will likely be un popular: but surely we praise SpaceX when they are
trying to sue the government to get some of that sweet launch contract
business; but we will say nothing whn they are launching satellites designed
to either kill or spy on anyone by launching more tentacles of the octopus!

~~~
ghshephard
"launching satellites designed to either kill or spy on anyone by launching
more tentacles of the octopus!"

Satellite designed to kill? I think that's more a plot line to a movie. I
don't think we've launched, or are planning to launch any killer satellites.

And, with regards to "spy on anyone" \- isn't it generally considered that
transparency is a good thing for geopolitics? The physics of satellites/optics
are such that you don't really need to worry about satellites personally
spying on you beyond the resolution of a vehicle...

~~~
dingaling
> you don't really need to worry about satellites personally spying on you
> beyond the resolution of a vehicle..

"The IMPROVED CRYSTAL's sophisticated electronics provides sharper images than
the KH-11, comparable in quality to the best of the film return satellites,
with a resolution approaching ten centimeters. "

[http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/imint/kh-12.htm](http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/imint/kh-12.htm)

~~~
danielweber
You have to be doing something _really_ wrong for satellites to catch you.
They aren't overhead on demand so you only get snapshots, and they work on
very large things.

------
ColinWright
_In deference to comments made, I 've removed most of the information I
originally posted. I included titles and web domains, but now I quote just the
HN references._

There have been several previous posts of this story. Here are some.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7648105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7648105)
(some discussion)

Here are others, without significant comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7648225](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7648225)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7648748](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7648748)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649108](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649108)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649218)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649504](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649504)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7651066](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7651066)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7652383](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7652383)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7653026](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7653026)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7654433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7654433)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7654821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7654821)

~~~
piokuc
This story went to the HN top and then dissapeared, after few minutes. Earlier
something very similar happened to at least one of the posts you listed. I
wonder why?

~~~
cvbncvbncgbc
Points and time determine the position of a story. But if a moderator decides
that he wants to, he can flag the story for a certain amount of position, 20,
40( next page )... You will probably only find such story only if you dig
quickly enough using _more_.

It is an effective way of removing content. Deleting it would cause uproar,
but that way the story fades almost unnoticed even to the commenters who
noticed it.

There are also similar methods employed for specific users.

~~~
piokuc
But why would a moderator like to silence/censor this particular story? What
was wrong with it? I thought it was rather interesting and important.

