Hello, Mr Carmack. First of all, I take my hat off to you and entrepreneurs like you.

I'm curious to know why in your experience/opinion US space entrepreneurs so far have remained "onshore", despite what I would've thought were major disadvantages like high labor/compliance costs, due excessive regulation/taxation, compared to the "Third World". The cost of living alone in the US necessitates paying much higher wage/salary rates than much of the world "offshore".

For example, a businssman could hire 5 or 10 engineers in Russia or India or Brazil or somewhere with proven space/aerospace programs/industries for the price of one in California. He could create a R&D center somewhere cheap and stable and import what Western talent he needed to manage a good operation, but employ cheap skilled, semi-skiiled and unskilled labor where appropriate. A lot more minds and hands to solve engineering problems etc.

Since this isn't happening, I'm assuming I'm missing a big part of the picture, and it can't simply be something something silly, like "My country, right or wrong". But even with the cost of corruption and inefficiency in a place like Russia, surely the fact that fully functional spaceworthy manned and unmanned craft are already being manufactured relatively cheaply means Russia is a better location for any new major private space R&D effort?