http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2015-01-13/musk-says-spacex-will-develop-satellites-in-seattle17:37 - 'We're creating an engineering centre in Seattle. Big announcement on Friday. We're going to try to do for satellites what we've done for rockets. Several hundred people eventually, starting with 50 or 60, perhaps 3 or 4 years until 1000.'(paraphrased)
Personally I think this is awesome, and it would be cool to see if Space X and Elon can do for the satellite industry what they've done for the space launch industry (and Elon and Tesla for the electric car industry, and Elon and Paypal for the payment processing industry, etc, etc).However, and I'm far from an expert here, wouldn't this open them up to anti-competition lawsuits?
Quote from: ericspittle on 01/13/2015 03:51 pmPersonally I think this is awesome, and it would be cool to see if Space X and Elon can do for the satellite industry what they've done for the space launch industry (and Elon and Tesla for the electric car industry, and Elon and Paypal for the payment processing industry, etc, etc).However, and I'm far from an expert here, wouldn't this open them up to anti-competition lawsuits?Has it opened up Boeing to such lawsuits? Boeing developed Delta IV and builds commercial satellites. As far as I'm aware, that wasn't really a problem (though they did have other problems).It's not like SpaceX is going to turn away satellite customers, and they certainly haven't so far. They need all the launches they can get, long-term.
However, and I'm far from an expert here, wouldn't this open them up to anti-competition lawsuits?
Quote from: ericspittle on 01/13/2015 03:51 pmHowever, and I'm far from an expert here, wouldn't this open them up to anti-competition lawsuits?Nah, as long as there is one other vendor for similar services (doesn't even have to be satellite-based), the FCC doesn't care, and hasn't since Clinton was in office. This specific argument was settled 15 years ago, though I'm happy Google is cracking it back open.http://www.extremetech.com/internet/196675-google-calls-on-fcc-to-mandate-line-sharing-pits-itself-directly-against-comcast-and-other-isps
There just has to be firewalls between the launch vehicle and spacecraft business, if they are to launch other companies' spacecraft and other companies' are going to launch their spacecraft.