Union/non-union may not seem like an issue inside SpaceX, but the view from other workers in the industry may not match that. Last month, I was at a 4th of July party which happened to be mostly space workers, and when I brought up the subject of SpaceX the consensus was, 'Cool company. I'd totally work there if the salaries weren't so low.' It surprised me, since I tend to associate up-and-coming companies with money from the Valley with higher salaries.

There are definitely unions in the aerospace industry. My uncle was involved with a strike at United Launch Alliance a few years ago. It's actually the only time I can remember any member of my family going on a picket line.

You definitely don't work at SpaceX for the money. Their salaries are below market rate, the hours are brutal, but you're bootstrapping planetary travel. Just depends on what your motivations as a person are.

Disclaimer: I applied for a low-paying SpaceX IT position in Cape Canaveral, because Mars.

Could you elaborate on what "the way" means? After all, there are such unions now, like the International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers. IAM represents employees at, among others, KSC. Eg, they voted to strike at KSC back in 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06...

Ariane also has to deal with unions. You can see direct evidence at http://www.space.com/13037-ariane-5-launch-postponed-labor-s... .

(I mention these because strikes are easily reported in the news. Behind the scenes of course many of the engineers who built Ariane and the Shuttle are union labor, but that fact doesn't have the conflict that brings in readers.)

Since I don't see how union labor implies what you think it does, could you clarify?