Well, us space flight fans have had to deal with tolerating Nazis in the field for 80 years. Sucks bad, but nothing new.
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department" says Wernher von Braun
It’s starting to look like he was always crazy, and most of us didn’t see it until recently.
Yeah it didn’t really become apparent to the public until the Pedo Guy incident in 2018.
This article by his ex-wife from 2010 is pretty insightful, though. Lots of red flags.
Idk… He used to donate towards democrats and market his companies as LGBT friendly. I think things started to turn for him when one of his daughters came out as trans. After that he got radicalized and started abusing ketamine and coke.
I mean, he was always a little crazy… but not like this!
More like he was always crazy and he kept it away from the public until recently. His relationship with his daughter seems to confirm that.
Shame that his name will forever tarnish the amazing achievements of the engineering teams of SpaceX…
I was all in on space exploration. I followed the grasshopper. I watched the early landing attempts. I eagerly watched the Boca Chica developments. I watched the first full stack starship lift off…
And suddenly I had an ache in my gut. I instantly realized this was never about space exploration. This is about being the first guy in a new area of resource extraction. This is Musk pushing to be the first Spaniard in the New World to plunder all the riches before the next guy can get there. The “No planet B” is just a bullshit line to mask the unfettered greed that actually drives Musk.
By the time we have starship flying as planned, the earth will be a burning husk less habitable than the destination.
The rocket is reusable to increase profit. It does not “help the environment”. Methane burns “clean”, but only when it burns. When it’s leaked by venting, engine startup and shut down, and RUD’s it probably classifies as “the most potent greenhouse gas” injected into a region of atmosphere that’s never really seen pollution yet.
Yes, the engineering is incredible. But I can’t help but think of the associated costs.
My hesitation with the first part of this take (not defending the guy) is that there isn’t really an economic reason to get people to Mars. If the goal was asteroid mining, that might be different.
They also recondense a lot of Methane instead of just venting or burning it.
I’m not talking about the launch tower, I’m talking about the rocket. You can watch the live stream and see puffs of vapour regularly. It being a rocket there are very few things that gas could be. Some of it is nitrogen, sure, but the thing is 95% methane and oxygen and there is certainly very little nitrogen associated with the engines. I’m sure they’re not looking to dump it with no regard, unless they carry on with the “autogenous thrusters” which involves using propellant for maneuvering.
As for Mars, I think that’s total bullshit. His big idea was to corner the wireless internet market. He used Mars to sell it to us.
A lot of that is water vapor coming off the outside of the chilled tanks, though?
Idk about that Starlink theory. That feels like a conspiracy theory. It feels like it could be right, but I’ve never seen or heard anything to back it up.
A lot of that is water vapor coming off the outside of the chilled tanks, though?
No, there’s a lot of ice that falls off. Ice doesn’t come off in plumes from vents.
The thing about spacex’s falcon 9 architecture is, it’s an economy of scale. They need to launch a lot to be profitable. As soon as the started launching regularly they quickly ran out of commercial clients. The industry wasn’t ready for regular trips to space. All the waiting satellites got quickly launched and the backlog essentially evaporated. Spacex spent the time waiting for the new satellites to be built launching starlink. This allowed them to push the limits of reusability with their own private launches to show their commercial clients how safe used rockets are. This was always the plan, building consumer confidence by cornering the low orbit satellite market.
Way back during one of the early starship presentations Elon presented an idea for funding starship that was selling underpants (haha, 2016 Elon! You crazy!) There was a plan.
That feels like a conspiracy theory. It feels like it could be right, but I’ve never seen or heard anything to back it up.
It seems implausible for that to have been the “real goal all along”. SpaceX have had Mars ambitions since the early 2000s, before internet-connected smartphones existed. As far as I know, Starlink was the result of SpaceX clearing their Falcon 9 customer backlog around 2017, and asking themselves “What else could we launch?”.
I never realized people thought the ultimate goal behind those funding space travel was anything other than to get to more resources. You can see it in explanations of long term goals of spending on a space program in propaganda videos going back more than 50 years.
In the beginning space exploration was used to justify public funds for the development of intercontinental missiles and the industrial military complex. Now it’s used to justify space capitalism.
Even if it takes until 2040 to get Starship flying as planned (I think it’ll be 2030) the earth will be much more habitable than any other planet in the solar system. It’ll stay as such for the foreseeable future - regardless of the climate crisis. Unless we glass the planet in a nuclear war, that is. Which is a great argument for spreading life throughout the stars.
Antarctica is much more habitable than anywhere else in the known universe that isn’t earth. I don’t want to live there though.
In other news, rykllan is on BlueSky!
That looks like a bunch of tampons put next to each other for a commercial
