I wonder how "friendly" this competition is going to be.
Musk was a genius to start SpaceX, or he really timed it right. He's going to get so many federal dollars. It'll probably be worth more than Tesla.
SpaceX was founded in 2002, I don't think Musk was timing anything.
SpaceX just got the short end of the new Airforce launch contract, ULA got the big end for a rocket that’s never flown and won’t fly for another year. That’s after getting 2/3s as much as Boeing for a NASA crew launch capsule.
If SpaceX ever wants large proportions of federal space launch contracts, they have to start building rocket parts across all 50 states, especially Alabama.
Then again the US government doesn't really care if taxpayer money is well spent. NASA needs to shift gears to science and exploration. More rovers and deep space probes please and thank you.
And then what, watch the CCP trample HongKong, run massive internment camps, and threaten Taiwan with total destruction? China's (CCP's) values are wholly different from the free world's; I can't think of a way to co-exist when they can get upset for even just news reporting.
The west has pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into a dictatorship and they're building a powerful military with it. And Europe mostly hasn't even woken up to this yet.
Yet, you omit the Chinese leadership that's where the problem really lies. The CCP has a Han-supremacy drug problem and President Xi intends to steer towards a singular vision, whether the world agrees with it or not.
The Air Force says the X-37 has a "launch weight" of 4,990 kg. Its first flight was on a Atlas V 501, which has a max payload of 8,123 kg to LEO.
Hmm, it already returned after a two day stint.
The international political competition and struggle are among the most complicated and complex human activities. Value system and ideology are just but one part of the driven force, and most of time is even the secondary or irrelevant part.
