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Crew-9 Returns to Earth

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Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#471

Post by timewizard »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #316
madeofpalk wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Elon really had that much to do with this.

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.

> he did pour his heart and soul

And you have this knowledge, how?

> (and personal fortune) into SpaceX for over a decade.

Using paypal money to chase government contract money.

> If it weren't for SpaceX we'd be relying on the incompetent monstrosities of Boeing or ULA.

That does not automatically follow. It's entirely possible that a company better than all of them might now exist if SpaceX didn't.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#472

Post by ethbr1 »

mlyle wrote: post #466
TimTheTinker wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much fraud and abuse has to occur before it's able to be labeled as "corruption"? Fraud literally means intentional lying in accounting or other financial representations, for the purpose of improperly benefiting someone. If people in government are benefited directly or indirectly by fraud, that's literally included in the definition of corruption.

What a long gallop. > If people in government are benefited directly or indirectly by fraud, that's literally included in the definition of corruption. Yup, that endpoint is fine and can be agreed with. People in government having a job doing something you think isn't useful isn't corruption, though. And if a few percent of the money their program spends is wasted or benefits other people through fraud-- that's not c…

Moreover, where do people think corruption comes from?

The human desire to be richer and the power to make it happen.

Do people think Trump, Musk, and Thiel don't want to be richer?

And worse, that the poorly-vetted people who have attached themselves to this administration don't?

The idea that getting rid of fraud in a chaotic fashion is going to lead to less fraud is laughable, unless the assumption is also 'All of the people who are doing this are altruistic and moral.'

If you create chaos at scale, you simply end up with different fraud.

And you can quote me on this in 6 years when investigations begin to lead to trials...

(Which, naturally, Republicans will claim are politically-motivated? But you know who complains loudest about the rule of law? People who do illegal things.)

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#473

Post by MostlyStable »

nailer wrote: post #370
sanderjd wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Authoritarian" is a philosophy of how to govern. It is orthogonal to whether the government was fairly elected. (It's true that many authoritarian regimes seek to eliminate or corrupt elections, but being fairly elected is compatible with being authoritarian.)

[flagged]

Elections are one way of selecting government officials. Authoritarianism is a political philosophy that can be pursued no matter how one was selected. Yes, many/most authoritarians arise either not in democracies, or else in situations where the elections are mostly/entirely a sham, but that is not a requirement.

You could, at least in principle, have an authoritarian surveillance state where the government watches and controls everything you do...and the people could consistently (and freely!) be electing the officials enacting that state. In other words, authoritarian and democracy/election are not antonyms.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#474

Post by isx726552 »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #413
imglorp wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> fraud

Prove it.

They keep saying “fraud” without proof of anything other than just spending they disagree with. Spending, I might add, which was previously duly authorized by Congress.

The use of the word “fraud” is a smoke screen. To unquestioningly accept it is to be complicit in their lies. And that’s what they’re doing: lying.

If there really is fraud, let’s see it prosecuted via due process, like it should be. The fact that that isn’t happening speaks volumes.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#475

Post by bitcoin_anon »

caycep wrote: post #418
imglorp wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agreed, and in addition, DOGE is also on the path to be guilty of mass murder, given than historians widely consider Mao guilty of the famine from the Great Leap Forward, and projected deaths from their policies are beginning to be tabulated. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/forei... https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-rubio-usaid-mu...

There is a difference between cutting back on aid to other countries and a leader starving his own subjects.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#476

Post by zuminator »

nervmodem wrote: post #433
scblock wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> It's quiet amusingy that up ubtill recently in the usa it was easier to get surgery to turn you to your 'real' gender compared to buying yourself some alcohol.

That's not true at all. Kids can't just get surgery on their own. They need parental consent at the very least. Interestingly, one survey indicated that 97% of minors receiving breast reduction surgery were not transgender kids, but cis male kids with gynecomastia. In your hand-wringing about life-changing decisions, would you deny these boys the treatment they need and instead force them to keep their breast growth all throughout adolescence?

And it's certainly easier to get parental consent to consume alcohol than it is to get elective gender-affirming surgery. The total number of people getting GAS in the USA in one year has never exceeded ~13,000. That's for all ages. Meanwhile about 10 million young people under 21 per year drink alcohol, of whom about 10% were able to obtain it from their own home, which in some states is perfectly legal.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#477

Post by TomK32 »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #326
TomK32 wrote: post #255

There are much worse places to wait for a flight home. How Trump and Musk acted is just ridiculous and maybe shows that the are missing the bigger picture in complex situations or lack people close to them whole tell them that an action might be a useless publicity stunt or worse have negative impacts further down the road.

> How Trump and Musk acted is just ridiculous That depends on if the astronauts' return mission was delayed by the previous regime that controlled NASA. It seems like a pretty rational (if unethical) move for Biden's team to attempt to delay things to avoid giving his political rivals a big PR victory. Honestly though, any conversation to that effect would have happened behind closed doors and I doubt that even Musk…

> regime that controlled NASA

As far as I know the political regime of the USA was a democratic one last year.

The PR victory of a returning two astronauts (one of which called space her "happy place"[1]) who didn't take the ride home on a leaky capsule is rather minute and not worth a movie like the Apollo 13 mission. When them staying up longer NASA actually might have gotten more stuff done than if they didn't, even with Crew 10 starting with two empty seats in September.

The whole thing isn't as bad as Trump ordering the release of water in Northern California, but once more it shows that he wants to things purely for show with no regards to the consequences.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/ced019gne3no

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#479

Post by andrepd »

grandiego wrote: post #390
Workaccount2 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sad world where people expects successful people to hire a PR team just to be liked.

He could, however, not give a fuck about whether he is liked or not, which is certainly what I would do if I had 400,000,000,000$ of fuck you money. But being what would in rude terms would be described as an "attention whore", he instead spends his time making insane tweets and pretending to be good at videogames in order to impress a bunch of adolescent boys. It's almost sad.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#480

Post by fooker »

belter wrote: post #160
fooker wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX offered to do it for free. Publicly.

You are lying. "The Facts Behind the Delayed Return of U.S. Astronauts" - https://www.factcheck.org/2025/03/the-facts-behind-the-delay...

I wonder if you have read through this article yourself?
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