Earlier quoted context omitted.
"free". Elon Musk offers a lot of things for free, and then turns out you have to pay anyway.
Like?
First example that comes to mind is Starlinks for Ukraine.
Crew-9 Returns to Earth
141–150 of 712 posts
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not sure it’s considered a vacation if you didn’t plan on staying 34x the number of days you had originally planned, or have a choice to leave. Especially when you’re separated from your family and other loved ones.
What is this about "planning" stuff? They trained and volunteered as astronauts/cosmonauts, and that still typically entails a military career as well, and military families indeed suffer the absence of loved ones, but that is always part of the collective sacrifice that makes America, well, great... and astronauts are public figures, celebrities, smiling for the camera and making prepared statements at each mileston…
Personally I don't think that's good enough justification. Being stuck in space doesn't make any country look good, if anything, it makes them look bad for their errors.
But the only people that can actually say this was bad or good are the astronauts themselves, only they know how much they love their work to turn the word "stranded" into something else positive.
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#143Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were not stranded with no way back home
And loved every minute of being up there. They were promised 8 days in space and got 8 months doing awesome science on the ISS. They’re astronauts; they live for this stuff.
Did someone ask them to really know they liked the unplanned stay or are we all just making things up?
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the coolest thing, but it will be frontier work. It won't be a walk in the park, almost certainly neither fun nor safe, and possibly a one-way ticket for a long time. (Even without the "corp-owned slave town" dystopia scenario that's also a possibility.)
"corp-owned slave town" in space human slave is literally most expensive labor you can choose, automatons is the way
Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.
- Werner von Braun
The worst political nonsense I get caught in means a phone call. Not an extended stay with potential life-lasting or shortening effects. Rad is different for everyone :)
Captain Paperclip would have encouraged the negative path, yes.
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
What line?
Exploiting and lying about the monumental efforts of a pioneering industry for cheap political points certainly feels like a line to me.
Eh, the whole space race has its origins in a propaganda war with the USSR staffed by ex-Nazi engineers. It's not more deserving of sacred purity than anything else.
On the other hand, the sheer lying about everything is exhaustive and corrosive to the public sphere.
(also while dealing with the villain of the week we've forgotten about the previous villain responsible for this situation, Boeing)
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#147Hate all you want to Elon, you still need to credit to credit due.SpaceX did awesome Job.
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
They weren’t trapped https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/13/science/boeing-starliner-astr...
They were practically stuck, they just didn’t «feel» stuck or abandoned. What a joke of an article.
Doesn't the ISS always have a return ship or two in case of emergencies?
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#149I remember some discourse saying they were not "trapped" in space (as in physically unable to get to earth safely), they just didn't want there to be only one american crew member on the ISS, or something along those lines. Is anyone on the ISS now, or did they all come home?
There has to be someone on the ISS at all times - unless you want to abandon and decommission it, that is, but nobody (except Elon Musk) is suggesting to do that at this point in time...
>unless you want to abandon and decommission it, that is, but nobody (except Elon Musk) is suggesting to do that at this point in time...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39474840 NASA will retire the ISS soon (npr.org) Feb 22, 2024
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#150Hate all you want to Elon, you still need to credit to credit due.SpaceX did awesome Job.
I don't think Elon really had that much to do with this.