And still, otherwise sober-seeming people on this site continue to make excuses and give him the benefit of the doubt that he has some kind of good intentions.
"It would also wreck the business plans of multiple US companies working to provide this capability for NASA. Moreover, it would shoulder even more responsibility for the US space enterprise onto a single company, SpaceX."
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This hits it on the nose. Musk is using his political influence to lock out the competition and siphon billions of government spending to his own company. It's a crystal clear conflict of interest and exposes the real purpose of DOGE.
"Let's go to Mars" is a lot more ominous than it used to be, knowing who will be in charge of such a venture and their attitudes on, idk, everything involving society.
The push to the Moon was a national project that resulted from the vision of an elected leader with at least some controls on his power, and never promised to create a society beyond the authorities of Earth. Musk's push to Mars is the opposite.
The ISS is old and is only getting older, but if it means having a place to do some science that would otherwise not be done, and draining funds that would otherwise be used by an ethically-questionable human being to make himself the emperor of Mars... keep it in orbit.
> "Let's go to Mars" is a lot more ominous than it used to be, knowing who will be in charge of such a venture and their attitudes on, idk, everything involving society.
On the bright side, it'll happen, one might predict, about 6 months maybe 12 months at the outside after a Tesla has completed a fully autonomous coast to coast drive.
> "Let's go to Mars" is a lot more ominous than it used to be, knowing who will be in charge of such a venture and their attitudes on, idk, everything involving society.
What's the old saying about homeowners associations keeping Nazis busy so they can't do damage elsewhere? The quicker we can get this guy to Mars and set him up as Emperor God of Mars, the quicker we can get him out of our hair.
He never believed we would get to Mars or that there would be a self-sustained colony. Mars has only ever been a pipe dream about bilking the world's largest governments for the fattest contract in all of history.
That'll be ok for a couple hundred years, but not nearly long enough. Will get real bad after. And at the cost of ignoring extreme iniquity for a long long time.
> This original statement was somewhat ambiguous. Last July, NASA awarded Space X an $843 million contract to modify a Dragon spacecraft to serve as a propulsive vehicle to safely guide the aging space station into the Pacific Ocean in 2030. So in some sense, preparations are already underway to shut down the laboratory.
> I asked Musk if he meant that NASA and the US government should commit to the 2030 end-of-life date, or if he wanted to accelerate the timeline for the station's demise.
> "The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible. I recommend 2 years from now," Musk replied.
So it's not like this is coming completely out of the blue, but it's hilarious Elon's continued heel turn. He went anti-tech, abandoned his environmental/EV fans, and now he takes aim at space nerds? Are there any of his original supporters left to piss off?
He literally only made this comment because the commander of the ISS called him a liar. He is so thin-skinned that he is willing to explode the entire space station ahead of schedule just to retaliate over a Tweet.
"Narcissistic rage is an extreme reaction that can occur when someone with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) feels their self-importance is threatened. It can be triggered by criticism, loss of control, or even minor setbacks."
We should start teaching children emotional intelligence daily in K-12, including niche topics like how to spot sociopaths, narcissists, ..., and all other forms of monsters. Perhaps in a generation we can learn to stop giving these deeply damaged and dangerous people any kind of power over us.
Space nerds are pretty meh on the ISS. It's cool but it served its purpose. Nobody is gonna cry if it dies a little earlier. We should have our sights set on bigger and better things.
Yeah, one of their modules is leaking in a sketchy way and they wanna dip. I'm sure politics and money play a non-trivial role but at the end of the day if the Russians won't put their people in it nobody should put people in it.
> at the end of the day if the Russians won't put their people in it nobody should
Ha, fair point ;-)
> I'm sure politics play a non-trivial role
Yeah, they may get paid to fly supply missions, but it's still a tiny bit uncomfortable to claim on TV how they are cooperating with the "evil Anglo-Saxons" (their strange propaganda term for the West) to supply the ISS.
AFAIK, the Russian half is lucky to still be intact today. It wouldn't surprise me if the Russian Federation has wanted to deorbit it for decades simply due to the burden of repair and resupply missions.
> Russian Federation has wanted to deorbit it for decades simply due to the burden of repair and resupply missions.
They do get paid for it? I'd imagine it's bringing in a chunk of change and they'd be happy to let it keep flying. But as a sibling post, politically it's not advantageous for them perhaps.
If anything his interest is to keep the space station since SpaceX is the preferred, and now the only provider of transportation to/from the station.
It's actually a pretty clever way to avoid the conflict, have others push to keep the space station and thus the necessary transport contracts with SpaceX. Not only this but it also aligns with his stated decades-long goal of focusing on a manned mission to Mars.
Youtuber @Thunderf00t claims that none of Musk's businesses are actually profitable. Musk is only rich because he traded his shares of a failing X.com (the bank) for Paypal shares in trade, mostly, for stopping to sabotage Paypal online, then did little or nothing at Paypal until Ebay bought him out. Tesla is losing money hand over fist, and disaster is turning to catastrophe with Musk's recent antics. SpaceX is losing money (and would be hemorrhaging money if not for US government spending). Starlink is losing money. Neuralink is losing money. Xai is losing money. The Boring company is bankrupt. X has lost at minimum 75% of it's value since Musk took over, and is running at a loss.
Musk's talent is not tech, and it's not "first principles" or anything like that. His talent is getting idiot investors to invest ... and not ask for their money back until it's far too late.
Thunderf00t's claim is that Musk is not taking over the government out of patriotism, but because his businesses are 100% dependent on continued government investment, because they're burning through investor cash. MASSIVE continued government investment.
The general theory being that Musk has dethroned Bernie Madoff as the biggest US fraudster ever, that this has already happened, but won't come out until fresh government money stops increasing, we just don't know it yet.
Yes and according to the article, there are still interesting things planned in the meantime. Meanwhile, who would benefit from working on and sending a replacement up?
Readit News
He's also gutting the FDA, USAID, CFPB, and FAA, all institutions that his businesses have come in conflict with: https://bsky.app/profile/rbreich.bsky.social/post/3likloythd...
And according to the WSJ, Yaccarino is now threatening advertisers to spend more money, "or else": https://x.com/bungarsargon/status/1892659483806924994
And still, otherwise sober-seeming people on this site continue to make excuses and give him the benefit of the doubt that he has some kind of good intentions.
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This hits it on the nose. Musk is using his political influence to lock out the competition and siphon billions of government spending to his own company. It's a crystal clear conflict of interest and exposes the real purpose of DOGE.
Deleted Comment
The push to the Moon was a national project that resulted from the vision of an elected leader with at least some controls on his power, and never promised to create a society beyond the authorities of Earth. Musk's push to Mars is the opposite.
The ISS is old and is only getting older, but if it means having a place to do some science that would otherwise not be done, and draining funds that would otherwise be used by an ethically-questionable human being to make himself the emperor of Mars... keep it in orbit.
On the bright side, it'll happen, one might predict, about 6 months maybe 12 months at the outside after a Tesla has completed a fully autonomous coast to coast drive.
https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/
What's the old saying about homeowners associations keeping Nazis busy so they can't do damage elsewhere? The quicker we can get this guy to Mars and set him up as Emperor God of Mars, the quicker we can get him out of our hair.
> I asked Musk if he meant that NASA and the US government should commit to the 2030 end-of-life date, or if he wanted to accelerate the timeline for the station's demise.
> "The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible. I recommend 2 years from now," Musk replied.
So it's not like this is coming completely out of the blue, but it's hilarious Elon's continued heel turn. He went anti-tech, abandoned his environmental/EV fans, and now he takes aim at space nerds? Are there any of his original supporters left to piss off?
We should start teaching children emotional intelligence daily in K-12, including niche topics like how to spot sociopaths, narcissists, ..., and all other forms of monsters. Perhaps in a generation we can learn to stop giving these deeply damaged and dangerous people any kind of power over us.
I mean, it seems like a fair number of them don’t care what he does, or how - he’s a “genius” and everything he does is perfect, much like his VP.
Excuses will always abound.
Oh, yeah; some people can rationalise anything if they're sufficiently emotionally invested in a figure.
Fans of Atlas Shrugged
Weren't the Russians pulling out of supporting it in 2025?
> Russia has even suggested it may pull out of the ISS as early as 2025.
Though I couldn't find an actual quote from Roscosmos just a BBC article.
Ha, fair point ;-)
> I'm sure politics play a non-trivial role
Yeah, they may get paid to fly supply missions, but it's still a tiny bit uncomfortable to claim on TV how they are cooperating with the "evil Anglo-Saxons" (their strange propaganda term for the West) to supply the ISS.
They do get paid for it? I'd imagine it's bringing in a chunk of change and they'd be happy to let it keep flying. But as a sibling post, politically it's not advantageous for them perhaps.
It's actually a pretty clever way to avoid the conflict, have others push to keep the space station and thus the necessary transport contracts with SpaceX. Not only this but it also aligns with his stated decades-long goal of focusing on a manned mission to Mars.
Musk's talent is not tech, and it's not "first principles" or anything like that. His talent is getting idiot investors to invest ... and not ask for their money back until it's far too late.
@Thunderf00t's latest video about the Starship crash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0uFO6BjWSs
But the whole channel is interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/@Thunderf00t/videos
Thunderf00t's claim is that Musk is not taking over the government out of patriotism, but because his businesses are 100% dependent on continued government investment, because they're burning through investor cash. MASSIVE continued government investment.
The general theory being that Musk has dethroned Bernie Madoff as the biggest US fraudster ever, that this has already happened, but won't come out until fresh government money stops increasing, we just don't know it yet.