Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like?
Didn’t he very publicly offer to fund fixing world hunger then ignored it when an NGO came up with an actual plan?
How much was he paid for fixing world hunger?
Crew-9 Returns to Earth
271–280 of 712 posts
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ars has been like this ever since Conde Nast bought them. It was a great publication a long time ago.
Pure ideological drivel. Anti technology.
Eric Berger used to be a major standout from them, and has traditionally never delved into the partisan nonsense. I've recommended him, on this account alone, countless times. He was a diamond surrounded by a pile of crap.
It's extremely out of character and the writing on this exact topic is somewhat contradicted by other articles he himself wrote on it, like this [1] one. I have a suspicion he's being pressured to increase engagement/subscriptions, and it's trivial to do that in the age of such extreme political derangement.
Countdown to Substack.
[1] - https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/butch-and-suni-send-mi...
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 rig…
In a situation where everyone has an incentive to lie, there's no reason to believe anyone.
Musk and Trump have a history of exaggarating, to say it lightly, but NASA, like most of the government entities, hasn't been transparent with their internal processes either.
I see no reason to trust either of them.
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
Are you only reading every third sentence? The return vessel was docked in September. The return was always planned to be around today, not in September. Trump and Musk are lying about the astronauts being forgotten. They're lying when they claim Biden abandoned them. As far as I can tell, NASA didn't delay for political reasons. Nor did they allow the return journey today for political reasons. This was the plan all…
If that's true, why did the astronauts confirm Musk's version of the story in an interview? Genuinely asking ...
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#275One thing I'm confused by is that we need to do "reporting" to figure out what the truth is here. Can't we just ask the astronauts, or NASA, or something? Why is there no official statement on the matter?
There's actually a video of Butch, from the station, saying Musk's description was "entirely factual" - although he then sort of backtracked that. Seems like no one wants to outright explain what happened.
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#276There are certain historical inadequacies in the article.
"That is, the Apollo Program brought the country together in the turbulent 1960s and helped make everyone feel good about the country"
This certainly was not 100% true, as some communities protested against Apollo program [1], even though, overall, the progress it has caused helped eventually those communities as well.
Nevertheless there were kind of bipartisan agreement to push this program which, in current situation of the divide in the society, would be hard to achieve, given some program pitfalls, like the tragic catastrophe of Apollo 1, which killed Virgil Grissom, Edward Higgins White and Roger Chaffee (worth to not forget those people, who sacrificed their lives for humanity progress). Kennedy (and his wife) personality helped here a lot too, with some murky person, like Nixon, or someone featureless like Johnson it would've been more difficult.
Also the claim that 1960s were turbulent is not really correct. In fact, 1970s were really turbulent with the rise of domestic terrorism [2][3].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/14/apollo-11-ci...
[2] https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OPSR_TP...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#277Eric Berger has a good summary on the narrative: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/can-nasa-remain-nonpar...
Interesting to complain about partisan politics and then write an extremely partisan article
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought some of those were still free. Do you have information to the contrary? Edit: italicized
Per the Polish government, they’re paying $50M per year for Ukraines service. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy87vg38dnpo.amp
You are going to have to do better than some tweet battle. AFAIU from Wikipedia with decent sources the service is free, but the terminal's not, and that is what Poland paid.
Also, it's not like Ukraine or even Poland has to pay, the can pay if they want, they can also not pay if they want. It's entirely elective. They can stop using any time they want. I heard that Google has a Starlink replacement in the works that is super awesome and I also heard that while Europe has completely killed itself with regulation they are entirely willing to buy things made by China which has absolutely no regulation.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrain...
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#279Earlier 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.
>"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. That doesn't sound like an "excellent journalist". It sounds like a Redditor.
Basically any online article site like ars comes across as a Redditor with reddit-tier takes and a mixture of ChatGPT. If you graduate to something like the NYT then you sound like a lobbyist.
Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth
#280Disappointed to see how politicized this issue has gotten, especially on HN.