No competitors? points at Airbus

As the article clearly states near the top: if Airbus physically can't compete with Boeing because they have years of backlog and no ability to take on more orders, they are effectively not competing with Boeing.

Maybe we should just have Airbus do safety reviews for Boeing and vice versa.

This sounds exactly like a prisoner's dilema scenario.

> nationalization also lowers the ceiling on how good it can be

How's that? What private company outshines, say, NASA (especially in its glory days)?

If we're leaning on an excuse like glory days, why do anything to Boeing either?

After all, no one yet outshines their glory days of building classic planes and building the SaturnV?

I was responding to the suggestion that nationalization imposes a ceiling on quality.

I understand that, but I don't agree that it makes sense to at all consider the "glory days" as indicative of the ceiling. As it isn't really relevant to discuss ceilings on quality in terms of exceptional circumstances.

Just like how the "glory days" of many nations or many companies are when they're unsustainably burning resources for a short time for the sole purpose of glory. To me quality implies sustainability.

In what metric? SpaceX outshines them on launches. In fact, NASA has consistently outsourced design and construction to the private sector. The space shuttle? Privately built by Rockwell. Hubble? Lockheed. ISS module 1? Boeing.

How about humans on the moon? NASA's still crushing SpaceX. (Glory days.)

What does NASA build?

You missed the second part of the headline apparently. Nationalize and then break it up into new competing entities.

So nationalize then privatize?

Yes. I'm not sure that a clearer explanation of the author's argument would call this nationalization at all. The author seems to be arguing that Boeing is already essentially nationalized in terms of the disadvantages of a nationalized industry, without the advantages, while at the same time, is nationally essential and can't be made to stop operating, or even punished that harshly. I think the author's suggestion could be better summarized as: seize Boeing, and have the state keep it running during the time it takes to break it up into private companies that would compete with each other and would be actually private, rather than quasi-nationalized. If anything, the author seems to be more pro-private-industry than many comments here.

I'm not sure if the author used 'nationalize' in the title to be provocative, but if so, given the comments here, it seems to have been an unfortunate choice.

explain how the soviet space program beat the us on every metric except moon landing (a vanity project hyped by the us to compensate for lagging)

> every metric

Sure, except:

   - First spacecraft to detect/study the Van Allen belt
   - First solar-powered satellite
   - First polar-orbit satellite
   - First photograph of Earth from orbit
   - First satellite recovered from orbit
   - First spy photos from space
   - First aerial recovery of an object returning from orbit
   - First great ape in space
   - First pilot-controlled space flight
   - First successful planetary flyby (Venus)
   - First spaceplane
   - First reusable piloted spacecraft
   - First geosynchronous satellite
   - First geostationary satellite
   - First piloted spacecraft orbit change
   - First successful Mars flyby mission
   - First rendezvous of manned spacecraft
   - First spacecraft docking
   - First direct-ascent (first orbit) rendezvous
   - First (and only) human orbit of the Moon
   - First (and only) humans to land on the Moon
   - First spacecraft to orbit another planet (Mars)
   - First spacecraft sent on solar escape trajectory
   - First spacecraft to enter the asteroid belt
   - First Jupiter flyby
   - First Mercury flyby
   - First Saturn flyby
   - First untethered spacewalk
   - First Uranus flyby
   - First Neptune flyby
   - First Pluto flyby

So, yeah, vanity.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Space_Race
   https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/o51254593.pdf
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_artificial_satellites_and_space_probes
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_1

Good points, the race does seem closer than I was aware.

What was the most useful application of early space launches? Corona observation satellites were operating since 1959. The TRANSIT positioning system was operating with a constellation of 5 satellites from 1960.

Who was focused on vanity projects?

They beat us by canibalizing their society. It works for a time, but eventually you have a revolution on your hands.

JFK really moved the goalpost on that one.