<story><title>SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/spacex-gets-886-million-from-fcc-to-subsidize-starlink-in-35-states/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bumby</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know if those who would argue against funding SpaceX take the &amp;quot;either traditional defense contractors or SpaceX&amp;quot; bait. I think a major argument is that there are better ways to spend the money here on Earth. I.e., it&amp;#x27;s nobler and more feasible to protect and improve this planet than settle another one.&lt;p&gt;As a former space industry worker, I don&amp;#x27;t know if I subscribe to that, but that&amp;#x27;s the best steelmanning I can come up with.</text></item><item><author>juanbyrge</author><text>If there is any corporate entity I&amp;#x27;d happy giving public funding, it would be SpaceX. Their end goal is to settle Mars and potentially other bodies in the solar system. Compared with the absurd amounts of money wasted on defense contractors, I am perfectly happy with funding SpaceX in every way possible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fiftyfifty</author><text>This money is being spent to improve things here on Earth.  This is about providing internet to underserved communities on Earth.  Now you could argue that SpaceX has made it clear that they created Starlink to increase their funding for settling Mars (developing Starship etc) but at the same time StarLink stands to be a huge boon for people in communities that don&amp;#x27;t have access to high speed internet currently and that seems like a win-win.  According to the article, Charter Communications made even more money ($1.22 billion) from the FCC as part of this deal, I don&amp;#x27;t see anyone on here complaining about how Charter chooses to spend the profits from this deal, it&amp;#x27;s certainly not going to go to settling Mars.</text></comment>
<story><title>SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/spacex-gets-886-million-from-fcc-to-subsidize-starlink-in-35-states/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bumby</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know if those who would argue against funding SpaceX take the &amp;quot;either traditional defense contractors or SpaceX&amp;quot; bait. I think a major argument is that there are better ways to spend the money here on Earth. I.e., it&amp;#x27;s nobler and more feasible to protect and improve this planet than settle another one.&lt;p&gt;As a former space industry worker, I don&amp;#x27;t know if I subscribe to that, but that&amp;#x27;s the best steelmanning I can come up with.</text></item><item><author>juanbyrge</author><text>If there is any corporate entity I&amp;#x27;d happy giving public funding, it would be SpaceX. Their end goal is to settle Mars and potentially other bodies in the solar system. Compared with the absurd amounts of money wasted on defense contractors, I am perfectly happy with funding SpaceX in every way possible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mabbo</author><text>The problem with the &amp;quot;spend it here&amp;quot; argument is that there &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; plenty of money to be spent here. Nobody wants to.&lt;p&gt;How many trillions are spent on war? On corporate subsidies and kickbacks on everything else? How much money is wasted in so many other stupid things? We have a GDP rising at a faster rate than our populations and have for decades. We don&amp;#x27;t spend the that extra money helping people. We could, but we don&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;And then people look to NASA and SpaceX and say &amp;quot;Look at all that waste&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, this money is going to go to providing low-cost internet all over America (and then the rest of the world). It&amp;#x27;s going to provide a real, tangible benefit to people at a lower cost than the alternatives.</text></comment>