421–430 of 712 posts
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Does that justify blatant lies?
I'm worried spacex will end up a bit like Tesla, largely abandoned for Musk to go off on some political weirdness.
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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.
> He’s very knowledgeable about space topics, has good sources, and has been extremely fair to Musk in the past. None of the writers of Ars Technica are anything like fair to Musk.
True. For some reason they keep minimising the damage he is doing to both science and democracy.
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The normal process is that you always have at least one US and one Russian Vehicle docked to the ISS. In emergencies, each crewmember uses their spacecraft to return to earth. The normal rotation is that an additional spacecraft arrives at the ISS (so there are now 3 vehicles docked in total) and then the older spacecraft leaves with its crew. So before the single dragon leaves, a new dragon would arrive. I think the…
From what you are saying, it was not a rescue mission then? But Trump administration is trying to frame as it were. Is that it?
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> recent (regrettable) turn It's only regrettable through the lens of partisan politics. DOGE is undeniably a good concept. You will notice governments around the world copying the method. That is, launching initiatives to audit everything, cut wasteful spending, expose corrupt spending, and trim bureaucratic inefficiency via external oversight. It would be regrettable not to undertake the task.
Yes, of course it's a good concept. The problem is then giving the execution of the concept to arrogant people who are completely ignorant of what they're cutting. Then when they ignore the law, to double-down and keep pushing. The partisan politics come in when people cheer for wanton destruction because it's their side doing it.
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If Elon recognized that he had the social skills of an NPC and had hired a PR team, we would probably all still adore him and likely he would still just be doing engineering company stuff. Take heed, if you have money, power, and poor social skills, hire people to manage it for you.
For me all he had to do was not openly be a genocidal white supremacist. Maybe he needs a crew to help him with that, but I think there's something about that that's a bit more than "poor social skills" and I'm sick of pretending that me not knowing what to say to people at funerals is the same as him delivering multiple Nazi salutes at the presidential inauguration.
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DOGE saving effectiveness has been questioned. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-overstates... Of the $6.8T budget, $55B (or whatever is the truth) would amount to less than 0.9% of spending. https://usafacts.org/articles/this-chart-tells-you-everythin... Anyway, we have a Government Accounting Office already which is highly critical of waste. If anyone was earnest, they'd send them more resources. On…
The types of waste, fraud, and abuse matter as much as the scale. Even just a "little" (5%-10%) corruption is a moral stain on the whole thing. As it is, that "small" corruption is funding an extensive network of NGOs, nonprofits run by the families of people in government, media, etc. -- all to (a) keep a ton of money flowing to people in Washington DC and (b) protect that status quo. Politics aside, widespread corr…
Timeless: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...
How about let's solve problems practically instead of having trillion dollar decisions made in the name of virtue signaling about "moral purity."
> But doesn't the DC bureaucracy represent a common enemy to those on either side who value democracy?
Uh, no. USAID etc. have money because our elected representatives gave it money, as prescribed by the Constitution which governs our country.
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Before he took his recent (regrettable) turn he did pour his heart and soul (and personal fortune) into SpaceX for over a decade. If it weren't for SpaceX we'd be relying on the incompetent monstrosities of Boeing or ULA.
> recent (regrettable) turn It's only regrettable through the lens of partisan politics. DOGE is undeniably a good concept. You will notice governments around the world copying the method. That is, launching initiatives to audit everything, cut wasteful spending, expose corrupt spending, and trim bureaucratic inefficiency via external oversight. It would be regrettable not to undertake the task.
I'm all for audits, reducing waste, transparency, etc., not wanton firing and publicity stunts.
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They have had a completely normal emergency evacuation plan since 9/24/24, if they were ever "stranded" it was before that when they would have had to use the Crew-8 Dragon in an abnormal configuration. Is any astronaut who stays longer than planned "stranded"? Did Elon strand Crew-9 when SpaceX missed their deadline on building the Crew-10 Dragon? Or is it just if you can't go home whenever you want? Are Crew-10 str…
Again, if your aircraft is grounded you would consider yourself stranded at an airport until you could schedule and board alternate means of travel. Even though you could rent a car and drive 2000 miles, you're much more likely to wait 1 day for a new flight instead of adding 4 days of travel time. And during that day of wait you'd considered yourself stranded, even though you could walk right out of the airport at a…
> "The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long." -Musk
> "I have just asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to ‘go get’ the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration" -Trump
To say these things and then continue with the exact plan that has already been in place since September is absurd regardless of the accuracy of the wording.
There 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 bipartisa…
The late 60s definitely qualify as turbulent. What is your claim in the negative?
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Berger wrote two books on SpaceX in a very positive light generally, portraying Musk as extraordinarily driven and capable though not passing over less admirable traits. Berger is not a hater.
Prior to DOGE? That is really the question. Once a favorable celebrity wears the Red or ventures near the Orange the script is rewritten.