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Crew-9 Returns to Earth

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Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#541

Post by tzs »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #537
alxjrvs wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either way, I think a pro-Democracy attitude will oppose growing power of unelected officials, regardless of political leanings. DOGE is headed by an unelected official, from a party with not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now.

DOGE headed by Elon Musk was one of Trump's foremost campaign promises. In terms of democracy, that is about as direct of an electoral mandate as possible. > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now How about having been duly elected in the ballot boxes? Being pro-democracy means accepting and implementing the will of the people. (Trump disputed the election results in 2020 because he believed there was…

> > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now

> How about having been duly elected by a landslide majority in ballot boxes?

How is 49.8% a "landslide majority"?

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#542

Post by indoordin0saur »

ta1243 wrote: post #334
indoordin0saur wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seemed to all start going wrong with "pedo guy". Before then Musk was doing great things at Tesla and SpaceX. After that he started getting more and more unhinged, leading through to buying twitter, then trying to get out of it, then doubling down.

> It seemed to all start going wrong with "pedo guy". Before then Musk was doing great things at Tesla and SpaceX.

If you read the Isaacson biography of him, it seems like he's always been like this.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#543

Post by majormajor »

queuebert wrote: post #274
alistairSH wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...

They basically said "we don't know but I'm not gonna call anyone a liar" and it got spun for obvious political reasons. https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/butch-and-suni-send-mi...

> Wilmore: I can tell you at the outset, all of us have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously, respect and admiration for our president of the United States, Donald Trump. We appreciate them. We appreciate all that they do for us, for human space flight, for our nation. The words they said, politics, I mean, that's part of life. We understand that. And there's an important reason why we have a political system, a political system that we do have, and we're behind it 100 percent. We know what we've lived up here, the ins and outs, and the specifics that they may not be privy to. And I'm sure that they have some issues that they are dealing with, information that they have, that we are not privy to. So when I think about your question, that's part of life, we are on board with it.

> Wilmore: From my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all. From our standpoint, I think that they would agree, we came up prepared to stay long, even though we plan to stay short. That's what we do in human spaceflight.

> Wilmore: I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual. We have no information on that, though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how that process went. That's information that we simply don't have. So I believe him. I don't know all those details, and I don't think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe that you would be hoping for.

To be honest "what he says, is absolutely factual. We have no information on that, though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how that process went" should register quite highly on anyone's political bullshit meter because "absolutely factual" is a statement that makes a claim that they then say they don't have any facts about.

Anyone who reports those quotes as "comfirming Musk's version" should lose a lot of trust.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#544

Post by foldr »

Pinegulf wrote: post #100

Can't we just be happy that the astronauts made it safely back? (+ ignore the political spin from all factions.)

There’s only one faction trying to put a political spin on this. This isn’t a “both sides” issue.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#545

Post by raverbashing »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #331
raverbashing wrote: post #42

The optics of this were really bad As much as people were saying they were not stranded (and honestly they weren't), having your mission jump from a few days to months is a bummer. Sure, for a carreer astronaut, that's a great experience. But still, well, if I was sent on a professional mission for 3 days and had to stay a couple of months I would be very annoyed, as cool as the mission was. Especially as it was due…

Many astronauts get only one chance ever to do this thing which they train for their whole lives. Getting 9 months instead of 8 days seems like a huge deal.

Yes, I do agree that looking at this angle is a great experience

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#546

Post by indoordin0saur »

exodust wrote: post #364
indoordin0saur wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's only regrettable through the lens of partisan politics. DOGE is undeniably a good concept.

I'm actually a fan of that too. His issue is that he causes controversy where none is needed.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#547

Post by TimTheTinker »

tzs wrote: post #541
TimTheTinker wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOGE headed by Elon Musk was one of Trump's foremost campaign promises. In terms of democracy, that is about as direct of an electoral mandate as possible. > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now How about having been duly elected in the ballot boxes? Being pro-democracy means accepting and implementing the will of the people. (Trump disputed the election results in 2020 because he believed there was…

> > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now > How about having been duly elected by a landslide majority in ballot boxes? How is 49.8% a "landslide majority"?

I stand corrected, thanks. Edited my comment.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#548

Post by majormajor »

somenameforme wrote: post #330
kenjackson wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the linked article he stated: “For what it is worth, all of the reporting done by Ars over the last nine months suggests the decision to return Wilmore and Williams this spring was driven by technical reasons and NASA's needs on board the International Space Station, rather than because of politics.”

Read the article I linked above, also written by Eric Berger! Butch confirmed Elon's claim that he made an offer to bring them home last year was accurate. So we know that that offer was made, and must have been rejected. What we don't know is why. But the real thing here is that Eric Berger has written extensively about the political games NASA plays or (depending on one's perspective) is compelled to play. They sup…

> Read the article I linked above, also written by Eric Berger! Butch confirmed Elon's claim that he made an offer to bring them home last year was accurate. So we know that that offer was made, and must have been rejected. What we don't know is why.

Read his goddamn quote you're citing. The part where he says "We have no information on that, though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how that process went".

Which part of "I believe him despite having no information" do you think is "confirming"?

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#549

Post by thijson »

sambeau wrote: post #437
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.

He had a PR team. It all started to go wrong after he fired his PR team.

I think something similar happened to Tom Cruise several years ago.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#550

Post by majormajor »

somenameforme wrote: post #396
pavon wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That interview doesn't really say much. It is mostly an carefully worded, polite but empty statement made after earlier extemporaneous comments by Suni and Butch seemingly contradicted Musk. The headline claim is basically just Butch saying he has no insight into the decision process but he trusts Musk is telling the truth. In contrast other articles Eric wrote talking to people who where involved in the decision of…

I 100% agree he's phrasing things 'politically', but think about how you might also be reading what you want to read. For instance the section where you [reasonably] claim he's contradicting Musk (by claiming the decision was not political) was also not only phrased politically, but even came with a sort of disclaimer starting with "From my standpoint." There were no such disclaimers when stating that Musk made some…

How are you possibly parsing "We have no information on that, though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how that process went" as "I can confirm that Musk made that offer and it was declined"?

That is a HUGE disclaimer. "no information on that, though, whatsoever" - it doesn't get any bigger than that.

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