Posted on 12/27/2017 8:11:09 AM PST by Simon Green
The first launch of a new rocket normally uses ballast such as concrete or steel to simulate a payload. That's boring. As per Musk, "Boring is bad".
His businesses don’t require a government subsidy.
But if the gov’t is eager to give him $billions in tax breaks, he’d be stupid to not ask for it.
...oh, and his businesses have generated more tax revenue than the “subsidies”. Taxpayers see a net benefit.
...oh, and there’s a difference between _giving_ someone money vs not taking money away. You know, like how Leftists are screaming about Trump’s tax cuts “taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich” when he’s letting everyone keep more of what they’ve earned. I’m all for tax cuts, and if that realistically means reductions in taxes on narrow categories of taxpayers (not to be confused with _giving_ money to narrow categories), like with Musk’s endeavors, then I’m all for however those tax cuts can be arranged.
Just curious, I’ve read somewhere in FR Musk is heavily subsidized by the FedGov. Is that the case? If true, by how much per year since Tesla has been in business?
Regards.
Still, why not send up 15 or 20 liberals instead of a perfectly good car?
[Musk’s biggest engineering breakthrough has been removing the smokestack from the coal-fired automobile.]
LOL I see what you did there.
This is all well and good, but I’ll really be impressed if Musk can drive a Plymouth Satellite faster than the speed of light.
To get to the scale of applications SpaceX is targeting, they have to do a full-blown test launch of an actual Falcon Heavy. At that size, nobody wants to put anything of real value in the payload (people, multi-million-dollar space probes, etc) - so in the past they’ve done such tests with boring stuff like blocks of concrete. Musk, trying to keep the enthusiasm alive, is making it personal with something amusing that also serves to advertise another of his businesses.
Since they’re not sending anything in particular anywhere in particular, SpaceX is just lobbing the payload “out there” ending up in a billion-year orbit. The point is just to get _something_ “out there”.
Since they don’t need to send anything in particular, just _something_, the head of the business has chosen to send something amusingly personal - his most famous car. Just like we’re still talking about Voyager 1’s “golden record” 30+ years later, we’ll be talking about Elon’s “Space Oddity” Tesla Roadster for decades to come.
I still don’t understand why we can’t just utilize some of our surplus liberals as ballast for these flights. They’re not useful for much else...
Well, maybe the government should stop offering subsidies. Can’t really blame the entrepreneur who is taking on all the risk to mitigate his position by taking advantage of what’s available. No more than I can fault the farmer down the road, as he puts it, “I’m not the one who offered me all that money”.
flight to the sun. Hmmm
The general claim is that Tesla has received $5B in “subsidies”.
In return, the gov’t has collected significantly more in revenue. Just last year alone, Musk personally paid $2.5B in taxes from earnings on Tesla stock.
Actual numbers may be hard to come by.
Also, remember those “subsidies” are in the form of tax breaks/credits - his ventures pay less in taxes, not to be confused with receiving large checks from Uncle Sam (like Solyndra apparently). It’s another example of greater federal revenue via _lowering_taxes_.
I’m not aware of SpaceX receiving any “subsidies” - just very large contracts from NASA, US military, and other well-funded clients.
His other ventures are not large enough to receive significant “subsidies”.
And remember that it’s not so much that Musk is _receiving_ subsidies, it’s that the government is eager to _give_ him subsidies. He’ll do just fine without them, but would be stupid to not accept mountains of money (or tax breaks) being thrown his way just for the asking.
“Well, maybe the government should stop offering subsidies.”
Musk is actually on record begging the gov’t to do exactly that. It’s distorting the market.
(Yes he took full advantage of what was offered, as he sensibly should. Still doesn’t mean it was/is a good idea to offer.)
need some space shuttle competition, maybe Uber.
Snowflakes aren’t massive enough to be useful for a launch. They also tend to melt and spill around making messes.
There actually are several other private rocket/launch businesses competing with SpaceX. Jeff Bezos (Amazon) owns Blue Origin which is making good progress toward putting people in orbit, John Carmack (iD Software) owns Armadillo Aerospace which helped get the new wave of private space travel started, Boeing is getting motivated to put someone on Mars before SpaceX does, and there are others in the market too.
Uber et al would step into the market when launches are commodity enough that customers don’t care _who_ owns & runs the rocket, just that _someone_ can get the cargo/passengers to the destination in time at a decent price.
i was trying to be funny but thanx i try to keep up
I revel in playing the straight man for jokes.
I wish I had better ones. Best wishes.
Thanks for the reply. I have a few follow-ups:
- Do you have any hard data on what tax breaks Musk has benefited from the FedGov?
- Do you have any hard data corroborating Musk has not received grants or very low interest loans from the FedGov?
I read you said data is hard to come by yet if the FedGov is involved then the data is out there to be found, unless it is classified which I do not think fits Musk’s business endeavors. And I, must admit, am too lazy to do the research and would prefer to rely of FRiends,
I have no particular animosity towards Musk and his businesses, just looking for the truth after discussing with a few friends how it was possible for Tesla to stay in business when their product is so unaffordable for the masses unlike say the Prius.
Thanks again.
The expensive part is having the oil changed every 4000 miles along the way...
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