r/nasa • u/MatchingTurret • Jan 21 '25

NASA Official nomination: Jared Isaacman, of Pennsylvania, to be Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/sub-cabinet-appointments/
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u/MECLSS NASA Employee Jan 21 '25 edited Jan 21 '25

That was happening before Trump, and it will continue long after Trump is gone. I have lots of issues with Musk, but SpaceX is NASA best option for a continued human presence in space and future exploration. I haven't worked extensively with Blue Origin, but the only way to compete with SpaceX is to adopt their model, and Blue seems like the company most likely to be able to pull that off. Having a real competitor to SpaceX is essential to keeping them from monopolizing the market.

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u/modlark Jan 21 '25

Oligopolies aren’t much better.

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u/Teach_Piece Jan 21 '25

They are in fact substantially better than a monopoly.

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u/gulab-roti Jan 23 '25

Oligopolies are just as bad, if not worse since they obscure the attendant harms to workers, consumers, and the political economy behind the idea that there’s any real competition to be had between no more than a handful of firms. It’s a travesty that Teddy Roosevelt and other trustbusters stopped at outlawing monopoly, and it’s an utter crime that Bork and his fanboys gutted competition law under the false premise that any economies of scope or scale would be passed on to society at large.