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SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
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Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obama bailed out Tesla, and if that hadn’t happened Elon would have been cooked. https://www.wired.com/2009/06/tesla-loan/ Biden is writing huge checks to SpaceX. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/pentagon-... Elon sucks at the teat of government and cozies up to the guy who thinks windmills cause cancer and is vehemently anti-EV. Boeing is another issue, but Elon is nothing without Uncle Sam.
You're pretty good at writing clickbait headlines yourself. Those huge checks are a DoD contract for unblockable internet coms not some handout and for $20 million a month it sounds like Elon is giving them a deal, at least compared to what Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman get every year. They don't just suck the teat, they eat half of it.
You make a good point (imo) but you end on such a grim mixed metaphor!
Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
#83Man the reporting on this ordeal has been so awful and so representative of how media misleads the public into thinking things are worse than they actually are. It isn't a rescue mission, it's a regular crew rotation mission with modifications to account for the extra crew left on the station, and those crew are 'stuck' only in the sense that they're expected to stay there as part of their duties and it would be unne…
Occhams razor might say the reasons to downplay this incident are overwhelmingly more attractive.
- Boeing is a fortune 50 company and is a direct contributor to news media advertising revenue.
- Boeing is a darling of US aerospace and a bulwark of us international projection of soft power and defense. Telling the truth will destroy the us aircraft market.
- china does not have this problem with its space program. The comac airliner also directly competes with Boeing's beleaguered 737
- loss of confidence in the us space program at the vehicle level jeopardizes trust from consumers and insurance companies in the us space products market like satellite launches.
Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess I'm a victim of this reporting to some extent, because I remember this situation going on for months, and I keep thinking every time it's mentioned (often) how terrible it must be for these astronauts and why something isn't done about it. But I know almost nothing regarding details. I know I despise Boeing and that I admire astronauts and that reading this headline, I thought 'its about fucking time!' But if…
There were issues with Boeing's Starliner that made it difficult for NASA to quantify the risk of bringing the test crew back on it. NASA still believed that the risk was likely to be negligible, but since they had the option of taking a fully proven spacecraft back home, they opted to send Starliner home empty. The astronauts were/are comfortable on the ISS. There are plenty of supplies, and more have gone up as par…
It's worth noting that the astronauts in question have little to no control over the schedule, so "perfectly capable of coming back early" isn't a fair assessment in this context.
Coming back "early" would also occur at a cost of either tens of millions of dollars for an extra launch, or at a cost of valuable experiments not getting run because the space station was empty of personnel. NASA policy would prohibit the remaining astronauts from... well, remaining, because they have to have a lifeboat, which the two "rescuees" would have just used to go home. Thus, all of them would have to go home.
IOW, painting this as "normal operations" in any sense is disingenuous. The danger levels may not be overly exacerbated, but it was a very costly failure, and it may well be a drastic inconvenience to the astronauts. We likely won't know the truth of the latter until they write their memoirs.
It's easy to manage spin when the opinions being spun are in orbit on a restricted communication system.
Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see this claim a lot and I honestly don't understand why people refuse to see this for the disaster it is (for Boeing). An 8 day mission turned into a months-long mission unexepctedly and SpaceX ultimately had to bump 2 trained astronauts to return them to Earth. That's the very definition of a rescue and just a wildly massive PR disaster to boot. Beyond this, we still have no idea of what it will take to return St…
It was a disaster for Boeing, it was not a disaster for the astronauts. Extending stays at the station is not unheard of for test flights, the Crew Dragon test flight also involved the crew staying longer than initially intended, as NASA decided that it'd be a more effective use of resources to do so. SpaceX did not have to bump 2 trained astronauts to return them to Earth. That was simply the cheapest, least disrupt…
They could also pay Russia to bring them back to Kazakhstan on a Soyuz.
Another American ISS astronaut, Tracy Dyson, came back in this manner last Monday.
Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well hmm. NASA decided Starliner wasn't safe enough to use for the return journey, so the astronauts stayed on the ISS until the next ride became available. Originally the astronauts were supposed to go back on Starliner. Now they're taking another ride back. Is that considered a rescue? Well, it depends. If you get left behind on an island because your ride wasn't safe and another boat picks you up, is that a rescue…
Following the analogy... you're on an island. A ferry has showed up at the island every six months or so for the last 40 years. The last ferry that showed up broke before it could leave the harbor. No need to worry, though. Another ferry's coming in six months and there are plenty of supplies on the island. Is it rescue? Maybe in the sense that you can't leave when you wanted to and now you have to wait. But not in t…
> not in the sense that you were ever in any real danger
The analogy breaks down because an island isn’t space. Your default state on an island tends towards remaining alive. Your default state in space is dead.
A closer analogy is a plane in flight. It takes energy and effort to keep everyone alive. Externally-assisted recovery from peril, in that situation, is a rescue. Even if it’s convenient.
Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
#87To everyone saying "oh, the astronauts like having to be up there. It is an opportunity."
You get that they have no choice, right? And that for multiple reasons they are going to put the best spin on the event. For one, for their own sanity, they are going to be as positive and optimistic as possible. For two, there is likely a huge PR pressure to be as positive and optimistic as possible.
Being in space is a pretty big deal. It comes with lots of health risks, and they are isolated from their loved ones. For example, they might be missing funerals for friends or family members, they might be missing milestones of their children, etc... etc...
Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
#88Thank you Elon!
How much of SpaceX’s boring day to day stuff (including ~all of the F9 stuff) do you think he has a hand in anymore?
Isn’t he running Tesla, Twitter, Neuralink, The Boring Company, Starlink, and the Starship R&D, including its first-of-it’s-kind Raptor engine design which just hit major version 3? And also raising the remainder of his 12 kids (~8?) that are still speaking to him?
I’m fairly certain that most of the “boring” stuff at SpaceX happens despite Musk, not because of him. Ms. Shotwell’s (the SpaceX COO) name doesn’t come up nearly as often as his does, and I suspect she does at least an order of magnitude more work there.
Indeed, several SpaceX staff wrote an open letter complaining about him and his antics being a distraction that hinders them.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/spacex-illegally...
Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
This launch was normal and expected crew rotation, they just kicked a few people off the mission so that there would be open seats on the way back.
> normal and expected crew rotation, they just kicked a few people off the mission so that there would be open seats That’s neither normal nor expected! Go back to the age of exploration. A crew’s ship strands them on an island. Another ship was due to come anyway in 6 weeks, and the crew have enough food to last them that interval. They use witches to tell the coming crew of their problems, and that ship agrees to l…
Only seems like a rescue if you specify that they're alone on the island to be honest.
If you had said that they were left at an outpost with other people for six months it somewhat loses it's "rescue" vibes.
Re: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
#90To everyone saying "oh, the astronauts like having to be up there. It is an opportunity." You get that they have no choice, right? And that for multiple reasons they are going to put the best spin on the event. For one, for their own sanity, they are going to be as positive and optimistic as possible. For two, there is likely a huge PR pressure to be as positive and optimistic as possible. Being in space is a pretty…
> It comes with lots of health risks
It also means their forward flight time is curtailed. The near future holds manned missions more exciting than the ISS. There is a real possibility someone who might have gone to the Moon or even Mars doesn’t, now, because of Boeing.