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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

#541

Post by DocTomoe »

Spooky23 wrote: post #417
cyberge99 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which will backfire spectacularly when Obama is re-elected.

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.

I was under the impression that the 20th amendment would still terminate his term on January 20th, noon. In the absence of an elected president, the line of succession as defined in the Presidential Succession Act would kick in, meaning you got a Speaker of the House becoming president (if one exists), and if not, the Senate's president pro tempore.

Not entirely sure where you see murky and undefined situations...

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

#542

Post by tinfoilhatter »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #436
tinfoilhatter wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You're comparing their side beliefs and oddities to others main careers and expertise

I would hardly call being a Nazi a side belief or oddity. It was a pretty defining part of his identity. Same with Jack Parsons and occultism - it helped shaped much of his personality and beliefs. Regardless of all of that, the point I was attempting to make, wasn't they were Nazis or occultists. Rather, it was that they were members of influential societies / networks of people and didn't necessarily obtain their positions based on merit alone, similar to the lumberjack.

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

#543

Post by FloorEgg »

leobg wrote: post #193
FloorEgg wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon is competing with a lot of entrenched interests that would actively try to influence Trump to undermine Elon: - oil and gas industry - ICE automotive industry - telecom industry - media industry - and of course... Aerospace and defense industry (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.) There are a lot of very rich very powerful people that want Elon to fail, and any way they can undermine him would be a win for them. I say this…

Brave thing to say on HN. There are a few people here who will downvote any comment that contains the word “Elon”, “SpaceX” or “Tesla” if the comment’s saltiness score is less than 8/10.

Perhaps. I am doing my best to stay emotionally detached from this topic and maintain a balanced view, and very open to reasoned arguments and being wrong.

Hacker News is one of the last places I feel comfortable engaging in this way, and not always (sometimes I step on a land mine and get surprised), but if it's not here, I don't know where else to go, and that feels like a shame.

I don't care much about the points, so long as I can keep engaging. So I do my best to follow the guidelines and have faith in the moderation to keep me and others in check, even if sometimes I slip up or encounter what seems like an unfair reaction.

To censor myself from being inquisitive or rationally explore a sensitive topic in a place like this just feels too dystopian for me to accept.

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

#544

Post by naasking »

Waterluvian wrote: post #442
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…

Re: 1. I think the America of Theseus mindset is a bit troubling. A lot of people like to identify with achievements that they played no role in. Based on zero expertise whatsoever, I have a sense that this is a bit self defeating. To be born a winner, to be taught you’re a winner… how can that be healthy? Today’s America scores zero points for its accomplishments of the past. But I think one way it can be a good thi…

> A lot of people like to identify with achievements that they played no role in.

They arguably footed the bill.

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

#545

Post by segmondy »

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…

#1 doesn't matter if we don't know how to do so anymore.

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

#546

Post by Waterluvian »

fluoridation wrote: post #540
Waterluvian wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just as absurd today as it was in the 60s. It’s an artificial challenge that focuses attention, with the goal of exercising government, industries, academics, etc. and maybe learn and invent a few things along the way. Yes, yes, Cold War and all those theories. But it had and can again have this greater effect. It’s kind of like a FIRST Robotics Challenge for nations. The specific goal really doesn’t matter and…

>It’s just as absurd today as it was in the 60s. Nah. You can argue that the goal "land on the moon" is artificial, but it being artificial doesn't make it fake or abstract. If you're the first to achieve it then you're the first, and that's it. What does it prove if you're able to repeat it fifty years later? You didn't have to invent anything new (obviously), and you're certainly not learning anything new. Now, if…

It feels arbitrary to decide we can’t have a Space Race 2 (Space Harder) but we have Olympics every two years and Super Bowls and World Series and all that every year.

I’ve got to assume I’m misunderstanding the objection because it feels ridiculous to overstir the oxygen over semantics. Do we just need to call it Space Race 2?

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

#547

Post by Armisael16 »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #230
gryphonclaw wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more escaping the gravity well, as the energy consumed by air resistance is fairly negligible compared to gravity and is more of a stability issue. But yeah, once in LEO you're halfway to anywhere as long as you can bring enough mass up for what you need.

that's fair, I was kinda just inferring as someone whose space travel experience is limited to Kerbal Space Program. The point still stands though: whether it's atmo or gravity the moon has a lot less of it than the earth, but still has a lot more local resources and space to put things semi-permanently. Long distance slower than light space travel has a Sahara problem and at least in the solar system the same sol'n…

If you’ve played KSP you should know how totally useless Mun bases are.

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

#548

Post by fluoridation »

jjk166 wrote: post #438
sobellian wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The space program stalled because pouring national wealth into gigantic single-use rockets was unsustainable. They tried with Shuttle but the material science wasn't there yet (heck it might not be even now, it doesn't seem that they've really nailed down the heat shield on Starship yet).

The issue with the shuttle wasn't the material science. It was designed around a mission profile of servicing spy satellites, which at the time had film which needed to be developed. The defense department gave NASA requirements which could only be satisfied by moving the orbiter to the side of the rocket, dramatically increasing potential damage to the thermal tiles and making crew escape basically impossible. This…

Wait, TV signals weren't unknown in the '80s and '90s. Why were they using film instead of TV cameras?

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

#549

Post by viraptor »

Xss3 wrote: post #514
tibbydudeza wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what end ?. Mars is a total boondoggle - a colony would require constant supply runs from Earth to support a double-digit population - who is going to field the cost and what are they going to do there ?. "The Martian" was work of fiction. A lunar colony is cheaper and way more feasible.

Even a Venusian colony would be significantly more viable than mars. Mars sucks. The moon sucks too. We need rotating space habitats. With gravity and hookers.

I'm not sure 500⁰C and 100x earth pressure is in any range of viable...

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

#550

Post by mjamesaustin »

Waterluvian wrote: post #505
zdragnar wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America cannot possibly win the space race again, because it has already been won. The first to get there has already happened. The idea that we need to land on the moon once a generation just to say that we are as good at landing on the moon as our parents is absurd.

It’s just as absurd today as it was in the 60s. It’s an artificial challenge that focuses attention, with the goal of exercising government, industries, academics, etc. and maybe learn and invent a few things along the way. Yes, yes, Cold War and all those theories. But it had and can again have this greater effect. It’s kind of like a FIRST Robotics Challenge for nations. The specific goal really doesn’t matter and…

It succeeded in the 60s because we didn't just focus attention, we focused a LOT OF MONEY on it. In comparison, today's NASA has a meager budget which has only been further slashed by the current administration.

I would love to see the kind of investment in NASA we had during the 60s. The scientific advancements were staggering. Today, the only thing we have money for is weapons and warfare.

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