this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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SpaceX is more than just Elon.
As with X, I'll support it as soon as he's out.
If we stop doing business with SpaceX, we immediately demolish most of our capability to reach space, including the ISS until Starliner quits failing. Perhaps instead of trying to treat this as a matter of the free market we should recognize it as what it is - a matter of supreme economic and military importance - and force the Nazi fucker out.
Sure. As long as he goes, I'll support it all day long.
People really under estimate how important he is to SpaceX.
Reusing f9 1st stage - His initiative
Landing f9 on a barge - His initiative.
Making Starship Stainless Steel - His initiative
Catching Starship booster on chopsticks - His initiative.
The list goes on and on.
Without someone like him pushing for these radical things that everyone else thinks is impossible or a bad idea we wouldn't recognize what SpaceX would be.
Instead we have things like starliner which is a disaster, and blue origin which started before SpaceX and has never reached orbit.
SpaceX would slowly transform back into 'old space' if he was forced out as there are very few people willing to take the risks he takes.
Edit: and it's even very possible that the wrong CEO takes SpaceX public too soon which would make all the risk taking and fail fast development cycle they use impossible. Think of the stock crashing when a test flight fails and the pressure from investors around that.
Are those examples actually his initiative, or him championing someone else's idea?
Reusing f9, landing F9 on barge, and Stainless steel were his initiatives. The SS one was a particularly hard win for him with a lot of internal push back.
Catching Starship on the chopsticks might have been an idea he heard outside of SpaceX, but that he then championed, again to a lot of internal push back, I'm not 100% about it being an external to spacex idea though.
Edit clarity and below
Those are just examples though. And I'm sure there are times as you suggest that people suggest a difficult idea that he then champions as well.
That he can champion these radical things, his idea or not, is still the key point of his leadership that will be lost.
For example, someone must have suggested they use a full-flow staged combustion fuel cycle for raptor. He had to sign off on that. No one had ever designed and flown a engine like this before. The russians came closest making one, but never flew it. The predecessor to this engine in the 60s or whenever, NASA didn't even think it was physically possible to make until the Russians made it.
The main point is, you need a crazy person to have crazy ideas. Even if 95% of his ideas are shot down, the last 5% are still crazy shit nobody else would thought was possible and never bother to seriously pay some engineers to try it if he wasn't in a leadership position.
Without him, there will be much less crazy, but both the good and bad kind. I fear the day SpaceX just becomes another Boeing.
Seriously, just landing rockets was laughed off as a stupid waste of time by all the industry incumbents just 6 years ago. That was a crazy stupid Elon Musk idea even dumber than the cybertruck at the time, and look where we are now.
Elon founding spacex in the first place had people laughing at him and the thought of him destroying all his wealth.
I don't think his personal accomplishments really matter in the face of his support for the far right, crushing hatred of trans people, calling people pedophiles and the absurd amount of misinformation and bigotry that he promotes on xitter.
If SpaceX needs an absolute piece of shit like him in order to succeed, then there shouldn't be a SpaceX.
Yeah but all of that was before he stopped taking his meds.
Thankfully SpaceX is MORE than just Elon. Unlike Twitter, where he's removed everyone and turned it to slop. He makes no money from it, so why shouldn't he fuck with it?
SpaceX actually makes money. Elon won't fuck it up. (Or he will, but atleast we will have learned an insane amount of things thanks to them.)
I'm sure it makes money and he may not F it up, but that's not the point. The point is that Elon has turned into the douche of the century along with his butt-buddy Trump.
I'm all for giving Nasa the light of day again, but from what I can tell, "Its not in the American interests" to give Nasa a good budget.
Yeah yeah yeah they overspend, are bad at budgeting, and have issues. But im quite stubborn, space science and research is priceless in my book.
So, if SpaceX is owned by a shit bag narcissist, but atleast space research is advancing? Well, that's fine with me. I feel very happy for all the jobs and scientists and aerospace engineers who have a job thanks to SpaceX.
Serious question - is it nasa over spending, or is it congress forcing certain requirements on them making things more complicated that leads to over spending?
I am by no means a good source. From what I've read and seen it definitely seems like that is part of the issue. I believe for a time Nasa was also hugely underselling the real cost (likely so they could get it pushed through in the first place) which also lead to issues of its own.
Ya, it's also massive ecological damage so we can all go "ooooh ahhh!"
https://www.space.com/rocket-launches-environmental-impact
https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astrophysics/greenhouse-gas-space-x/
Go complain about fast fashion and other disposable junk. Space technology is one of the most important aspects of our future. I don't see the logic behind people complaining about these rockets, is it because they're in the media spotlight?
Other industries that don't provide any meaningful value do orders of magnitude more damage.
All industries destroying the planet are responsible including fast fashion, rockets are not allowed to harm people because "they're important". Important to what? Important to profits, important to american military and cultural hedgemony, important to innovation of more unnecessary products to sell to even further degrade the ecosystem?
No you go fanboy over fascist rocket boy.
I assume you meant the opposite of what you wrote. Your question was answered in my previous comment.
You think we should just stop all industries then?
Sorry for the f word insult.
We live in a capitalist world that is exploiting the planet for profit and will continue to do so until it dies, which scientists are telling us we are coming up on.
Most of the industries of the world do not exist for the benefit of humans, they exist for the benefit of those who want to rule and hoard resources. We are brought up in a culture they control that tells us their products are important and to desire them.
Ultimately, I don't think it's ok to cause harm to living things and ecosystems to prop up this system. Like, how many people is it ok to kill so that we have cell phones? Rockets are just a particularly egregious example way of thinking, just like fashions shows are. So yes, I think if our species expects to exist in 100 years on a planet that still has forests and whales, it will require the end most industries we know today. Degrowth of some sort is the only way forward that doesn't end in disaster. Rocket use at the level of 2024 is simply not compatible with sustainability.
Do you like modern tech? Do you like the chips in your device you're using to comment right now? You can thank the space industry. Without Apollo we would still be 30 years behind in integrated circuit technology.
If I was given the choice by a genie, on the one side you have your laptop, Lemmy, car, etc, but millions of people an animals suffer, or on the other hand, our tech evolves more slowly and sustainably, I'd choose the latter every time.
I'll take being 30 years behind and still have <insert any species we've driven extinct>. An entitlement to the lives and well being of others for the sake of "progress" is pretty sick.
The suffering doesn't just go away because we don't have modern tech.
Pointless reply, not all suffering has the same cause of course, but most of the unnecessary suffering (i.e. that suffering of all sentient beings on top that which occurs due to the nature of life itself) is caused by human activity, specifically where selfish individuals have felt entitled to cause suffering in others, destroy ecosystems, extinct species, and oppress peoples in pursuit of their goals.
The world is not ours to consume.
But a very small portion of human activity is developing chips or launching rockets. Most of it is manufacturing disposable junk or building roads/buildings.
In fact, suffering increases a whole lot because medical and agricultural tech is still tech, not to mention how much life-saving and quality improvement is brought in by communications technology. Some people really think you can just click the "medical" tab in Civilization and guarantee only the benefits of the one technology you like.