this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
597 points (92.8% liked)
Technology
59598 readers
4481 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The mars thing is really a small part of what they do, although it gets the press. They are pretty much the only real game in town for satellite launches, and, I think ISS transport (especially since Soyez is Russian and there's not a lot of good will going on there...). Even Amazon uses them for launches. It's approaching monopoly status for critical infrastructure (we're very dependant on satellites as a society now).
Mars is a labour of love for future ambition, but it's not the main show.
Whether the root cause is historically poor NASA funding or not (I think there's a strong argument for competition and private sector IF it's properly governed, but it never is...), the fact is that we've created a situation where vast amounts of geopolitical control rest with a single person.