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Crew-9 Returns to Earth

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Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#221

Post by espadrine »

kypro wrote: post #166
pavlov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berger is an excellent journalist. He’s very knowledgeable about space topics, has good sources, and has been extremely fair to Musk in the past. When he says it’s a “throne of lies”, a line has been crossed.

Firstly, I understand people will disagree with me on this and that's fine – if you disagree please just explain why. Based on what I've read on this, I can see why Trump and Elon MIGHT feel like the return flight was held back for political reasons... But I'm not really able to take either side of this argument as it stands, so I'll give my thoughts for why that is in the hope someone might be able to convince me on…

> I still haven't seen any good reasoning for why NASA would delay the return flight

So many comments spread unsourced assertions on the topic on both sides. Let me change that.

On 24 Aug 2024, NASA stated in a conference published on X[0]:

> NASA has decided that Butch and Suni will return with Crew-9 next February.

So the decision sounded like it stemmed from NASA, and the plan a year ago was for a return in the time frame that actually occurred.

On 28 Sept 2024, the spacecraft that would bring Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore was launched. They restated the same plan[1]:

> A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and a Dragon spacecraft will launch Crew-9 to the space station for about a five-month mission. Hague and Gorbunov will join Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who are already aboard the space station, and all will return to Earth as a crew of four in February 2025.

Thus there was no action after Mr Trump took office that changed the plan. (Note that the SpaceX article we’re commenting on has a mistake, stating that Mr Grebenkin has come down on 18 March, but Mr Grebenkin came down on 25 Oct; it is indeed Gorbunov that came down.)

On 7 March 2025, Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate, stated[2] on the motivation for this:

> When it comes to adding on missions or bringing a capsule home early: those were always options but we ruled them out pretty quickly just based on how much money we've got in our budget and the importance of keeping crews on the International Space Station.

When asked specifically about a request from Mr Musk to have an earlier return:

> Was anyone outside NASA or the White House involved in the decision not to bring Suni and Butch back sooner? — There may have been some conversations that I wasn't part of. When we made the technical decisions about Starliner […] our leadership at NASA was trying to make sure that we considered everything just at a technical level and that's what we did.

[0]: https://x.com/NASA/status/1827396382702878966

[1]: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/commercialcrew/2024/09/28/nasas-s...

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/live/Xq5CH-d4IuU?si=-q-J65i7G_d6Mcxs...

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#222

Post by voidUpdate »

Y_Y wrote: post #165
pjc50 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

> 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. I certainly agree with this, but at the same time I think it's a red herring. So much good tech comes from war, but the nice thing (imho) is that it's "path independent". I'm no more going to scorn the work of Werner von Braun than I would John von Neu…

I also think that calling von Braun a Nazi isn't necessarily correct. He worked for the Nazi party, but if he didn't it probably wouldn't have worked out very well for him, and I don't think he supported their ideals all that much. He also always wanted to make his rockets, and working at Peenemünde gave him the opportunity to do that, even if it did require PoW labour. Obviously I'm not saying he was a saint, but I don't think he was as "evil" as some people make him out to be, and I don't think many people came out of the war with clean hands. He just really liked making rockets

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#223

Post by bravetraveler »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #215
bravetraveler wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unskilled labor would be the parents, but I can tell the metaphor is lost. Not sure why I bother explaining that.

I perfectly understand the metaphor but machine already replace human in factory on earth, why do you think human can work in the 10x times worse condition in space??? also if you born poor in earth, many people would take a chance to do space industry at all in the future despite the risk

We simply have different outlooks. I'm not going to argue it. I see exploitation (in a negative sense) where you're more optimistic. I truly hope you're right!

Before we had machines to put in our factories, we had hordes of dead laborers. Regulations are written in blood. Then we had company towns and truly brutal police enforcement.

Why will humans work there? Partly for the reason you gave: poverty. That makes them particularly expendable, offering themselves to the 'chance' as you say.

edit: My bias is obvious, I work in SRE - not development. I don't create things, I deal with the fallout of creation. It's a lot like that.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#224

Post by wat10000 »

bheadmaster wrote: post #128
pavlov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berger is an excellent journalist. He’s very knowledgeable about space topics, has good sources, and has been extremely fair to Musk in the past. When he says it’s a “throne of lies”, a line has been crossed.

I wasn't very convinced by his arguments - the main one being: Senior NASA officials earlier this month confirmed, publicly and on the record, that the decision was made by the space agency in the best interests of the International Space Station Program. Not for political reasons. To be a little snarky here - so Senior NASA officials: honest, Musk: liar? If, hypothetically, NASA was pressured for political reasons,…

I can’t believe anyone took these claims seriously for even a moment.

Musk was a bullshitter even at his best, and he has fallen far from that peak in the past couple of years. Just go to his Twitter feed and see an unending stream of absolute nonsense.

Trump shows no indication that he even understands the concept of truth.

And yet somehow people manage to say, “NASA says X, Musk and Trump say Y, who knows who’s right?”

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#225

Post by SecretDreams »

pie_flavor wrote: post #211
pveierland wrote: post #76

Eric Berger has a good summary on the narrative: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/can-nasa-remain-nonpar...

Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk puff pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces. It's just as grating, and when every other news org is reporting it more measuredly you should be very cautious before calling their summary 'good'. For example, this article claims the political reasons are unspecified, but they were in fact discussed at length (I think Musk even mentioned them on a…

> Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk puff pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces.

When Musk wasn't insane, I think a lot of people valued him a bit more. I personally haven't cared for him since pedo guy, but others did.

Reality is he's now batshit crazy, destroying America, and intersecting himself in a bunch of shit nobody wants him close to. Of course that has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

It's not a "shift to the right". I don't care of someone is a bit right or a bit left. This man is dangerous, out there setting America back decades, and sending out some hail Hitlers along the way.

Shift right... Come on.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#226

Post by SecretDreams »

bradhe wrote: post #161
yard2010 wrote: post #139

> Kate Tice, an engineer from SpaceX on the webcast, noted that touchdown was imminent. "We're going to stand by for splashdown located in the Gulf of America," she said. Ah, yes. The Gulf of America. This is why we can't have nice things. Haha you got to love the timeline we're living at.

I would like a different timeline, please.

No new timeline for you!

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#229

Post by tonyhart7 »

bravetraveler wrote: post #223
tonyhart7 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I perfectly understand the metaphor but machine already replace human in factory on earth, why do you think human can work in the 10x times worse condition in space??? also if you born poor in earth, many people would take a chance to do space industry at all in the future despite the risk

We simply have different outlooks. I'm not going to argue it. I see exploitation (in a negative sense) where you're more optimistic. I truly hope you're right! Before we had machines to put in our factories, we had hordes of dead laborers. Regulations are written in blood. Then we had company towns and truly brutal police enforcement. Why will humans work there? Partly for the reason you gave: poverty. That makes the…

wdym exploitation, space company would not having a hard time to pay their employee the same reason oil company do

also human is expensive, if fleet of human slave is cheap then we outsource all of our work to china and india. but that don't happen we build a trillion dollar industry (AI and robotic) to make all of that

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#230

Post by gcanyon »

FredPret wrote: post #64
gcanyon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally everything is in space, Morty! Get in the car! My second favorite quote from the show.

What’s your most favourite then?

One I can't put in print: Rick's rant about how he described Mr. Needful's microscope and its effect. The wordplay is but unfortunately it's unrepeatable.
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