They are the only ones capable to launch some of these big DOD satellites BUT ULA isn't running around doing repukes dirty work for them.

your point, sorry.

them there. Both have been doing it for DOD for many years now, especially since the last of the Atlas heavy launch vehicles went up last year. Its a matter of who can get you where you want to go. Only China and Russia could do it but I dont think we'd want them to. Not condoning Musk, but it's a matter of necessity.

considering Musk/Trump are claiming we can't afford to have a functioning government.

I am way in the camp that if we want to reduce spending nail the MIC and the Pentagon. More waste and fraud there than anywhere. But when it comes to bang for the buck in keeping us safe from bad actors, especially nuclear proliferation and states like China, Russia and North Korea (now adding India and Iran), these DOD satellites are a decent deal. Unfortunately repukes have slashed the US space program down to the point that we only have 2 heavy launch rockets powered by the last 8 engines from the Space Shuttle era left and those are being saved for the moon. That's 1000% pathetic seeing how NASA had one of the largest returns per tax payer dollar spent of any government entity for decades.

Unfortunately that strategy of repukes defunding NASA so much it hardly exists we are now dependent on private (ULA is a private company) companies and/or foreign (Russia up until a couple of years ago) countries. If you look at what the repukes have done to NASA over the last 25 years it's exactly what they are doing to our government now

The big difference? Nobody gave a shit about NASA until they missed it.

A mentally ill drug addict.

Giving him money as part of US national security is very foolish.

NASA was the canary in the coal mine for what they are doing now. We have no choice but to use SpaceX or ULA for most of our launch needs. While DOD doesn't do a whole lot of low earth orbit contracting it's Space Forces geosynchronous orbital needs that have us cornered. Like I said, there are 2 private companies and 2 countries with rockets powerful enough to put a BIG satellite 22k miles up. It sucks that peoples "so what" attitude towards NASA for the last 25 to 30 years has put us in this position. I would much rather have a publicly funded "private" national space program like we used too.

And I would argue hard that we NEED to be in space and not fall behind the curve, especially with the Chinese. They are moving as fast as we were in the 60's and have surpassed us as having a heavy lift rocket (or a low earth orbit one for that matter) as a nation even though they shoot them off like Boeing firecrackers.

Last edited Fri Apr 4, 2025, 10:11 PM - Edit history (1)

And, so is his bestie.

Putin?

Sucking the goodwill of American people.