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NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

cnn.com

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Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#761

Post by anigbrowl »

dash2 wrote: post #748
anigbrowl wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole “race to the moon, part II” is almost criminally stupid. Land on the moon when we can accomplish something there, not just to prove we haven’t lost our mojo since Apollo. Not as criminally stupid as resting on our laurels and frittering away all the technical knowledge which we are now relearning the hard way. 'I can't think of things to do on the moon, therefore it's a waste of time' is an asinine argumen…

Going to the moon isn't like weightlifting! If you need to preserve the technical knowledge, write it down. (Or record it in other ways if you think writing is limited.)

If it was that simple institutional amnesia wouldn't be a thing, nor bitrot. Think of all the articles pointing out how the US has lost much of its manufacturing edge because we gave up building precision machinery and generational skills atrophied in areas from metallurgy to mechanical engineering. We're now inflicting the same future on ourselves by trashing our public health research infrastructure.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#762

Post by kreetx »

pfdietz wrote: post #390
kreetx wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't it to discover alternative trade routes and also to show physically that the world is round? I think they didn't know that there were usable land to grow tobacco when they started.

The first of those is banal, and the second is wrong -- they already knew the world was round, and had a more accurate estimate of the diameter than Columbus was claiming.

Round, they knew, but still, to do it physically, was still somehow important - even for those who paid for it.

Banal, depends on what you mean by this word.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#763

Post by halapro »

vincenthwt wrote: post #759
allenrb wrote: post #373

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…

Hopefully, your view is in the minority. If this mindset becomes prevalent in the US, nothing new will ever be invented, and no new regions of space will be explored. Modern moon exploration isn’t about repeating Apollo but progressing toward resource extraction and establishing humanity’s long-term presence in space. These missions are designed to achieve goals that were previously impossible and lay the foundation…

> humanity’s future beyond Earth.

Yes but why?

It's cool that we can learn about what's around us, but in practice we're light years away from being interplanetary, we just can't afford it and our energy sources are laughable.

Realistically speaking, how far are we really from "moon travel" that is both remotely affordable and worth the trip?

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#764

Post by radu_floricica »

danbruc wrote: post #127
radu_floricica wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it kinda was stellar? When the test pad blew up I was absolutely sure we won't be seeing a V3 this year, but they recovered amazingly, with the last V2 test checking pretty much every goal they set for it.

But only if you are looking at the revised goals, if you look back at the original goals, things look different. It was supposed to fly around the moon with people on board two years ago.

Comment was "of late".

If you want to look long term, well, they're still stellar :) Considering everything they're achieving, and how they're so much better than everybody else in the field.

It's a failure only if you look at a rather small time range and criteria. Which I don't think was a surprise for anybody - Elon is famous for going for moon shots and failing, but still delivering better than anybody else.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#766

Post by DonHopkins »

Maybe Musk shouldn't have tweeted (then deleted) the obvious fact that Trump is on the Epstein list.

Makes you wonder, since Musk knew Trump is a pedo all along (and he loves calling people out as "pedo guy"), why did he invest so much money, time, reputation, ketamine, and Nazi salutes into getting Trump elected, then cowardly retract one of the only true things he ever tweeted, just to support the coverup instead of the truth?

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#767

Post by anigbrowl »

chippiewill wrote: post #507
Spooky23 wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t get elected if you don’t count the votes. That requires a joint session of congress. If due to an unprecedented emergency the congress cannot come into session there’s no clear rule what happens. Any number of emergent events may create an emergency preventing the congress from gathering. The congress are collaborators and the Supreme Court is compromised.

If that happens then Trump doesn't get to stay president, the 20th amendment means his term ends regardless.

Yeah, and who's going to force the issue? The minute someone kicks over a trashcan it'll be declared as the latest national emergency and the loyal forces of law and order will be told to terminate whiny radicals in sight. Would you have believed anyone who told you five years ago that there would be masked federal cops snatching people off the street in broad daylight by 2025?

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#768

Post by nebula8804 »

hopelite wrote: post #651
Yeul wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also ignores the fact that empires can decline. (Although I think the moon landing is ridiculous there is no scientific reason for it).

It’s more about establishing a permanent base or some operational capacity, not allowing China to dominate that aspect. And yes, it’s probably also about certain aspects of anxiety and probably some panic about the prospect of American decline after so many decades of squandering everything and letting itself both be bled dry and run off a cliff by a subversive element within.

>after so many decades of squandering everything and letting itself both be bled dry and run off a cliff by a subversive element within

After everything is all said and done, I wonder if it would be possible to build out a data project tracking the people and the decisions that led to the outcome and also where all the wealth went. I guess this is impossible because too many people are unnamed figures just doing their part succumbing to inertia.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#769

Post by jrnng »

nothercastle wrote: post #711
rayiner wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expected that comment for J.P. Morgan, not rail… so upvote for you.

Rail pioneered modern financial scams. I say modern because before that there were similar schemes in other areas like trade expeditions but the historical and written records on those are less complete and recent

Valdez, AK railroad history is interesting. Also violent.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#770

Post by mmooss »

panick21 wrote: post #530
mmooss wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah, but SLS were the right kind of people. Allegedly. /s / SpaceX, less so. Allegedly. Doesn't that attitude, in reverse, describe most HN commenters every time SpaceX or SLS is mentioned?

I'm not sure what are talking about. I don't like giving contracts to SpaceX because they are the right kind of people, I like it because they tend to deliver faster and at less cost with something more modern and more future looking. While on the contrary Boieng and friends try to use old tech they have in their archive to slap togetehr a minimal viable product to meet the requirment. But the contract structure chan…

You don't see that, on HN, a large number of people support and defend everything SpaceX does and demonize any possible competition, critic, or criticism?

IOW, it doesn't matter what SpaceX or the others are doing, SpaceX is the 'right kind of people' to them.

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