Consequently, the South African billionaire has been put in charge of a so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” to excise $2 trillion from the national budget. Whether this advisory group will be able to take aim at the Artemis program remains to be seen.
Gee wouldn’t have anything to do with sabotaging his competition so he can corruptly profit? Sounds like someone needs to drain the swamp of this scum.
He is not even sabotaging his competition. Starship is supposed to be part of the program and despite the spin will not be ready.
So he wants to cancel the program that has real deadlines so he can keep promising he will colonize Mars in the next 5 years, which he has been claiming for some time now.
he HSS been
That’s a funny auto correct. Do you talk about high speed steel a lot?
Yeah, but Biden’s aides had 4 years to toss him out…
And instead they didn’t, and we all know by know from those same aides and other elected Dems that Biden wasn’t competent on day 1, so if his aides didn’t think something was important, it didn’t get done.
We fucked around electing Biden, his admin fucked around in office, and now we’re in the find out stage just like trump voters.
Edit:
To clarify I meant Biden’s admin had four years to cancel Musk’s contracts for any of the shit ton of reasons musk shouldn’t have government contracts, and then they could have drastically increased NASA funding.
I get how my comment could have looked like I was criticizing Biden’s admin for not invoking the 25th. I still think they should have, but that wasn’t what I meant in the original comment.
The primary reason NASA still exists is as a way to funnel federal tax dollars to the states in a way that doesn’t look too much like socialism. They also spin it as a way to keep rocket engineers skilled up and in-industry in case they’re needed for war.
The stuff that we care about, the science, and the inspiring future generations, is all just a sideshow to the politicians signing the bills.
I’m going to need to see the receipt for this claim.
It sounds way too cool to be true.
To the politicians, it’s true. NASA is an easy(-ish) sell to the masses. There’s a reason that the funding for NASA has stipulations on what districts certain projects are based in, and what companies make specific parts.
The space shuttle wasn’t just one company, it was dozens and dozens of companies spread out across the country building high tech and high skill parts. The SLS was based heavily on the shuttle to keep those exact same districts employed with high skill (and high pay) work.
If congress was ok with NASA actually achieving things efficiently and on time, they’d just give them a budget and a goal, but that’s not how things are funded.
We still get the end result, it’s just an extremely wasteful way to get there.
Now look at how military projects are done. It’s the same thing.
It’s all a jobs program with a big focus on shoveling money towards companies that give a few tens of thousands of dollars towards their local representative.
If they actually wanted the SLS, it would have been funded in such a way as to have delivered the big orange rocket by now. It’s not funded in that way. The big orange rocket is not the goal of the SLS or Artemis programs. It’s all about “pork barrel” projects, which are just socialism with extra steps and less benefit. And maybe we get a cool rocket and some excellent science out of it eventually.
He knows SpaceX can’t deliver what they promised for the Moon program, so he needs to change the goalposts. Obviously NASA isn’t suddenly going to request less of SpaceX, not without demanding back all the funding awarded. So he needs to have the Moon program replaced with a Mars program, where they don’t need to deliver anything for the next 10-15 years and can delay time and time again.
Yeap, starship looks cool but is entirely impractical for lunar missions.
Just to get to LEO its fuel is pretty much completely depleted. So to get it fueled up to attempt a trans lunar injection you’re going to need an additional 8 launches, which all have to link up in orbit.
Not only is this going to be adding an incredible amount of additional cost, it’s going to be much more dangerous.
There are no humans on starship when it is being re tanked in orbit, so no its not more dangerous to humans. SpaceX are experts at in space docking, proven by their dragon capsule that docks perfectly with the space station evey time, and a startship launch will eventually be cheaper than a Falcon 9 launch. Yes I believe spaceX when they say that because they have always proved the nay sayers wrong (flacon 9 landings) and will continue to do so in the future. So you’re wrong calling it expensive, all launches to retank the lander will cost less than a NASA SLS launch that will actually take the humans to space.
You sound like a United Launch Alliance shill lol, that’s the arguments they tried to use to win the contract over spacex too.
I think most of you hate on SpaceX because of musk, and I agree fuck musk, but spaceX is the most revolutionary space company in our generation and I can’t wait to see them continue to prove you all wrong like they always do and keep advancing human space flight capabilities.
There are no humans on starship when it is being re tanked in orbit, so no its not more dangerous to humans.
Unmanned launches can’t be dangerous to humans? Even if there aren’t humans on the starship, you’re still talking about synchronized docking in orbit, which can fail and spew dangerous debris across leo.
SpaceX are experts at in space docking, proven by their dragon capsule that docks perfectly with the space station evey time.
Aww yes, two examples are surely a big enough sample to guarantee safety for the foreseeable future. Surely something that’s gone right twice has never failed in the future…
startship launch will eventually be cheaper than a Falcon 9 launch.
Maybe for individual launches, But for a lunar or mars mission…
think most of you hate on SpaceX because of musk, and I agree fuck musk,
Nah, I think SpaceX has done a lot of brilliant things. I just think musk has a tendency to over hype and over promise whenever he really gets involved in a project.
SpaceX is no further behind than any of the other contractors for artemis, everyone who knows anything about space and space policy knows that no contractor will meet the deadline trump set specifically because he wanted to be on the moon before the end of his second term (he thought he was gonna get reelected last time). Its common knowledge in the space community artemis will not be on time, and has already been delayed.
I fucking hate musk but you don’t know what you’re talking about, the new head of nasa is gonna be Elons freind Jared Isaacman anyway so it doesnt matter if they’re late at all.
Buy you are sorta right on the tail end of your comment, I think musk wants to scrap artemis specifically so a new mission that is almost exclusively done by SpaceX can take its place. Primarily I think he wants SLS to die and starship to replace it.
Also Elon claims SpaceX is going to launch a starship demo to Mars during the next transfer orbit which is in 2026, and I really hope they do because as much as I hate that bitch space exploration is cool AF.
Did SpaceX promise anything with the moon? I thought their goal was, and had always been, just Mars?
I always love the debate about fantasizing about anyone going to colonize Mars … we’re having a hard time sustaining life here.
I didn’t realize humanity wasn’t capable of working on both issues at the same time.
See the problem with that is Elon would have to hire more people, which would hurt his bottom line and require his money bin to fill at a slower rate. That’s unacceptable.
Tax the rich and suddenly there will be enough money to go to both.
This isn’t necessarily true and making this argument gives people an easy way to refute the idea of raising taxes.
Kropotkin conveyed it best:
It is told of Rothschild that, seeing his fortune threatened by the Revolution of 1848, he hit upon the following stratagem: “I am quite willing to admit,” said he, “that my fortune has been accumulated at the expense of others, but if it were divided to-morrow among the millions of Europe, the share of each would only amount to five shillings. Very well, then, I undertake to render to each his five shillings if he asks me for it.”
Having given due publicity to his promise, our millionaire proceeded as usual to stroll quietly through the streets of Frankfort. Three or four passers-by asked for their five shillings, which he disbursed with a sardonic smile. His stratagem succeeded, and the family of the millionaire is still in possession of its wealth.
We need more systemic change. Granted, a tax policy could be permanent systemic change, but without corresponding political and economic change it’s just as likely to be undone immediately.
Such a shame that Musk will tarnish all the amazing achievements of SpaceX engineers… What they achieved is absolutely incredible…
The fact that such clear conflict of interest exists between spacex/NASA and putting musk in the MF whitehouse… I cannot say I’m surprised, anyway.
