• NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Authoritarianism is when taxes pay for defense and civil space program?

    Yeah I get it, out military is bloated, does bad things, and we keep the industrial complex going buy selling weapons to almost anyone who will buy them.

    The government paying SpaceX to build rockets is not authoritarianism.

    • yeahiknow3@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You could attribute any payment, no matter how corrupt, to “national defense and a civil space program.”

    • Poayjay@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The Ukraine war has demonstrated what a military asset Starlink is. You can control drones in real time with no direct line of sight.

      • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        The US is bordered by friendly nations on the north and south, oceans on the east and west, and has a stockpile of thousands of potentially world ending nukes. You could cut the pentagons budget down to the price of a big Mac and fries and nobody would be able to invade.

    • ashok36@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      *paying SpaceX way less for rocket launches than they would any of their competitors.

      SpaceX, Musk or not, has tremendously reduced the cost to launch stuff to LEO. I’d rather give SpaceX $12 than ULA $24 for fewer launches.