I disagree. I think Superman would ask for a simple salary of $120k/year for his services.
I mean, the dude still has to make a buck, right? He has to pay rent like anyone else. I see nothing morally wrong with him being compensated a reasonable salary for his efforts. There are moral issues with charging someone for a rescue. And maybe he’s such a goodie-two-shoes that he would avoid charging for that. But Superman billing NASA isn’t the same thing as Superman handing a thousand dollar invoice to someone he just rescued from being run over by a car. One is taking advantage of someone in their most desperate hour. The other is just helping the government save a buck. NASA is perfectly capable of hoisting things into orbit themselves. All Superman is ultimately doing is saving the government some money.
Now, I can imagine Superman being too humble to charge, say, half the cost of what a launch would otherwise make. He would probably feel really bad charging millions of dollars for what to him is nothing more than a light workout.
So instead, I think Superman would just ask for the most reasonable thing possible, the right of every hard working American man - an honest pay for an honest day’s work. And what are the services of Superman worth? Well, surely his services are worth at least as much as the director of NASA makes per year. A search suggests this is about $240k/year. And Superman will certainly be doing as much for NASA as Jared Isaacman is. So why shouldn’t he ask for a relatively modest $120k/year salary for his services, half of Jared’s salary?
As far as secret identity, I’m sure the NSA figured that shit out ages ago. They just have an agreement with him to keep that under wraps. In fact, with superheroes willing to work ‘in the system’, they’ll go as far as to manipulate social media algorithms to suppress the spread of secret identity reveals.
FatVegan@leminal.space 4 days ago
I think that’s the point of the “if” in the question