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Crew-9 Returns to Earth

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Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#551
post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People spending money in ways that you consider wasteful is not the same as corruption.

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.

Others have asked, and I'm going to ask: Prove the fraud. That is a specific charge, with a specific meaning - as you point out yourself in your comment.

Pointing to money that was spent differently than you think it should be is not fraud, no matter how much you want to claim it.

Pointing to money being spent in suboptimal ways is not fraud. Maybe it's waste - but often it's what the law calls for (aka definitionally the opposite of fraud).

Yelling very loudly about how it's all fraud and waste is not proof. It doesn't matter how loudly you yell.

Repeating "there's so much fraud, omg, fraud everywhere, soooo much fraud" over and over is not proof. Even if your repetitions would make an animated gif jealous.

Actually prove the fraud: Show that the money was spent in a way different than proscribed by law, that the people authorizing the spending were lying, and there was direct enrichment of someone via those lies and misspending. It's not hard if of it around.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#552
post #456
post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe he has pretty good social skills, he managed to fly under the radar as a public figure for long enough, until he was powerful enough to no longer need to give a fuck.

His work history doesn't exactly say "pretty good social skills" If he'd had better social skills, he wouldn't have been fired from x.com and made even more money from PayPal.

Paypal is a good example actually: convincing enough to get named ceo, but gets kicked out once his partners get to the bottom of it.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The executive has many dimensions of freedom with regard to federal agencies. “Existence of” and “funding of” are not among those dimensions of freedom. I don't think the current administration actually abolished USAID or its funding; it just froze outgoing transfers from it. Some of the verbage used by Musk & others is exaggerated. They're playing to their voter base, unfortunately. It doesn't accurately describe…

Elected officials lying about what they are doing seems bad, by your line of thought about fraud and accountability and all. Unelected ones - worse still? The unsurprisingly-ignored central sin of the Trump administration for those who voted for it for reasons of "free speech" or "reducing government corruption" or "accountability" is that Trump and his circle do not actually believe in any of those things and are no…

> lying about what they are doing seems bad

Yeah, I hate that. Their talk is closer to WWE guys in the ring (at least on X) than the thoughtful orators whose pictures line the oval office. There's no thoughtful, careful, wise poise about it. There are many others like me who also dislike how things are said, but we look back at the actions taken (not words said) and are a lot more happy with them than we are with Biden's actions (or lack thereof).

> whole hell of a lot of corruption-and-waste-enabling precedents

Could you elaborate? I'm curious to know specifics you'd call out as examples.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#554
Who here wants a ticker tape parade to cheer on our brave astronauts!?!

When the parade ends at the stadium, we'll be treated to Musk and Trump on the jumbotron thanking them and wild 'U-S-A' chants as the astronauts circle the track! Confetti and flags!!

Who here still wants a ticker tape parade to cheer on our brave, heroic astronauts?!?

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#555
post #502
post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you have read through this article yourself?

Yes. Did you? Since you are insisting, can you point to the part that supports your statement: "SpaceX offered to do it for free. Publicly." It will be kinder for you, to think you’re lying, than to suspect a deficit in judgment...

"Wilmore said he had no reason to doubt Musk’s claims about an offer to bring them home earlier"

"Ken Bowersox, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, said, “I think there may have been some conversations that I wasn’t part of.” But he said the option to fly a separate mission to the space station to retrieve the astronauts was “ruled out pretty quickly.”

First hand sources: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1892617681796264436 https://www.youtube.com/live/rCiNtismqg8?si=M8ZfF79yK9pwYJ1o

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, but in the context used here the author is trying to absolve Biden of responsibility. Could/should Biden have done something to bring them back sooner? I don't know, but it is a government organization under his command.

I can't tell if this is downvoted because I upset someone in sorry if the the left or the right. I don't think what I said is untrue in any sense?

I think it’s downvoted because you seem to be suggesting that Joe Biden could have have overridden the decision making process led by domain experts at NASA. While in theory the President could do that, it would be a silly thing to do.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elected officials lying about what they are doing seems bad, by your line of thought about fraud and accountability and all. Unelected ones - worse still? The unsurprisingly-ignored central sin of the Trump administration for those who voted for it for reasons of "free speech" or "reducing government corruption" or "accountability" is that Trump and his circle do not actually believe in any of those things and are no…

> lying about what they are doing seems bad Yeah, I hate that. Their talk is closer to WWE guys in the ring (at least on X) than the thoughtful orators whose pictures line the oval office. There's no thoughtful, careful, wise poise about it. There are many others like me who also dislike how things are said, but we look back at the actions taken (not words said) and are a lot more happy with them than we are with Bid…

Corruption-enablement signs:

from this week, lawyerballing on reasons to ignore judicial decisions they don't like https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-hear-arguments-trump-adminis...

here we just call for impeachment of judges who rule against us https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-federal-judges-impea... - “at a certain point, you have to start looking at what do you do when you have a rogue judge.” - what else you got in mind, exactly, Donald?

and obviously there's the whole impoundment thing we've just been talking about - the executive blatantly ignoring a law that restricted that. should be trivial to imagine ways THAT could be misused.

Musk's entire role is pretty suspect - where was the Senate confirmation hearing or law authorizing the delegation of power to him? where is the authority over departments headed by actual cabinet members beyond "Trump said so"?

another big flashing warning sign is RFK and the CDC re-opening the vaccines/autism thing. wouldn't it be curious if suddenly a new study contradicts decades of research there? seems a bit wasteful to re-litigate unless you have reason to believe you'll get the result you want, not the one the numbers have been pointing to...

What are the good actions? Laying people off to save pennies off the budget? Promising tax cuts to enlarge the national deficit? Renaming shit?

(EDIT: another big corruption-enablement thing would be deciding the FCC is the "let's police speech i don't like" department.)

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#558

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.

> 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.

Eric Berger, senior space editor for Ars Technica [0], has written two books about Elon Musk and his role at SpaceX:

Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX [1]

Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age [2]

[0] https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/

[1] https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liftoff-eric-berger?v...

[2] https://benbellabooks.com/shop/reentry/

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#559

This one failure to return astronauts means spacex will replace nasa and that’s insane

SpaceX doesn't exist without NASA. And without SpaceX NASA would be still stuck in the 90s. It is a mutually beneficial relationship and clearly benefits the US.

Elon anywhere near power is bad for everyone and everything.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can easily look this stuff up:

Liftoff was published January 3, 2023

Reentry was published September 2024

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liftoff-eric-berger?v...

https://benbellabooks.com/shop/reentry/

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