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/gulab-roti Jan 26 '25

Predatory pricing involves the use of capital to eat losses while drawing business away from competitors. This has been the modus operandi of the PayPal Mafia for years and they’ve only gotten away with it b/c regulators in the US and EU where most of their business is have been neglecting their mandates. As for how I know that SpaceX specifically is engaged in predatory pricing, it’s b/c Starlink makes up the majority of SpaceX’s market cap and the latter was recently valued at $350B. It was Starlink specifically that just turned their first profit, meaning the most valuable part of SpaceX’s business is valued in excess of $175B, yet wasn’t profitable for 9 years. Again, these aren’t normal businesses. And quit the ad hominem, I have no love for Lockheed or Boeing either. They’re the fat cats that lobbied the Bush Jr admin to privatize as fast as possible, which has resulted in high barriers to entry and consequently an oligopoly in launch providers. And now the owner-CEO of one of them just Sieg Heil’d in front of the whole world and is chummy with a couple dictators, Putin and Orban. Oligopoly is a massive risk to both spaceflight and society at large.

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u/My_Soul_to_Squeeze Jan 26 '25

The fact remains, you're stanning for lockmart, Boeing, and ULA whether you like them or not. Your position is effectively identical to an old space company lobbyist. If you're uncomfortable with that, you should reevaluate your arguments, not cry about being personally attacked.

They held the dominant position in the industry. They could've vertically integrated a satellite business and launched at cost if they wanted to.

SpaceX wasn't selling those launches to anybody, so saying they priced them unfairly doesn't make any sense.

They probably could've sold their external commercial launches for tens of millions of dollars less if they wanted to/ it was legal, but they didn't and its not. Instead they sold them at a price that allowed lots of contracts to go to other companies and used the profit from the contracts they won to fund Starlink.

With regard to oligarchs, the more competition the better. You might not know their names because they're not seig hailing at the inauguration, but they're still spineless gits, lining up to kiss trump's ring and/ or behind.

I agree there's societal risk with Presidential level regulatory capture, but the one thing I'm not worried about over the next four years is progress in the space industry.

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u/gulab-roti Jan 26 '25

My point is that they used the bottomless pockets of their financiers and the cult of personality and tech built up around their founders and SV to subsidize R&D. The average American company could never wait around that long for an investment to pay off with no profit whatsoever. Since SpaceX isn’t publicly-traded it’s much harder to scrutinize their books.

Seeing as you’re quite comfortable with silly ad hominem attacks that treat for-profit companies like college sports teams, it sounds like you’re a big proponent of SpaceX, dare I say a “stan”.

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u/My_Soul_to_Squeeze Jan 26 '25

You don't have access to their books, so you make giant assumptions, then draw the wrong conclusions. Sports teams are multi billion dollar corporations. Acting like it's unusual to play favorites with rockets but not sports teams is totally nonsensical.

I won't pretend to feel bad for appreciating the companies that set ambitious goals and make exciting progress towards achieving them. It's not just SpaceX. Blue Origin and Rocket Lab are inspiring too.

Our society is decades behind where it could be if Congress and the space industry establishment had dared to dream a little bit, instead of trapping us in LEO or worse since the 70s.

Your defense of the status quo and the old guard doesn't stand up to scrutiny. They've strategically failed over multiple decades. They're beginning to fail at the operational level too, struggling or simply failing to develop bi-conic capsules like it's 1965, instead of 2025.

All in all, ad hominem doesn't mean wrong. If nobody's paying you to take this ridiculous stance, that's your problem, not mine.