[Teever]

You're saying that SpaceX, a privately owned company that has some contracts with different parts of the US gov't would find themselves in trouble with the government if they refused to launch satellites from a foreign owned company?

And you're saying that the government would go out of their way to fund alternatives to SpaceX because of this?

That seems a bit implausible.

[eganist]

"foreign-owned" in this case is still the UK i.e the closest ally we have today. So I don't think you'll see the same sort of American protectionism you might see with e.g a Chinese competitor.

Therefore... yeah, nothing's stopping the DoJ (guessing the FTC would make the referral?) from pushing an antitrust matter. But I certainly can't say for sure; I'm not a lawyer.

[simonh]

Foreign owned maybe, but the satellites are manufactured in the US. There are US commercial interests at stake in Oneweb, and the services it intends to offer to US clients too.

[Teever]

Where's the law that says that an American business must sell their product or service to a foreign company?

[eganist]

> Where's the law that says that an American business must sell their product or service to a foreign company?

As I understand it, it's covered by the various antitrust laws in the United States. And it's not so much a "foreign company" thing so much as it's an unfair advantage for any one company thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

Again, not a lawyer. But my lay reading would say that it would feel comparable to the action the feds took against Microsoft for trying to stifle Netscape. But I'm sure there are far better analogues.

[gbear605]

Under antitrust law, SpaceX would theoretically be made to split off StarLink from the launch business so that the launch business would have no incentive to prioritize StarLink over other sattelites.

In practice though, antitrust laws aren’t enforced very strictly and government contractors are treated leniently, so probably nothing would happen.

[Teever]

How?

SpaceX has no stranglehold over the market.