3 ms·

This has elements of truth but is a conspiracy theory the way you describe it. If you listen to Musk, or listen to people who work for Musk, or the people who w

by samr71 3y ago

This has elements of truth but is a conspiracy theory the way you describe it. If you listen to Musk, or listen to people who work for Musk, or the people who work for those people, they all say that the point of SpaceX is to enable human colonization of Mars. It's not just a marketing strategy to acquire talent (unless you think they're all lying -- hence the conspiracy aspect. Now, to do that, they'll need to scratch the government's back. Doesn't mean that Mars isn't priority #1.

georgeg23 3y ago
The only person that has to lie is Musk. That's why SpaceX is run as an autocracy. Everyone else drinks the Mars Kool aid. People who have been around a while connect the dots. To be more precise, the company is run by the DoD with significant technical and financial assistance. Elon is the main conduit between those deep resource and the rest of the company. He regularly meets with all teams to ensure they are aligned with "higher purposes". To be even more precise, Elon is a front-man for a right-wing multi-decade program in American hegemony and actualizing it's crowning achievement--the Strategic Defense Initiative.
- xNeil 3y ago
  can the internet please decide whether SpaceX is an autocracy, or if (as several media outlets put it) Elons companies succeeded in spite of him as opposed to because of him. both of these cannot be true at the same time.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > can the internet please decide whether SpaceX is an autocracy, or if (as several media outlets put it) Elons companies succeeded in spite of him as opposed to because of him. No, the internet isn't a hive mind, and is never going to have simple unitary opinions except as rare coincidence. > both of these cannot be true at the same time. And yet a planet-scale information network can easily include voices that believe each of them simultaneously, because people disagree.
  - oblio 3y ago
    Corporations are basically late stage feudal systems, close to absolutist systems, depending on the company (see Meta as an extreme example, or most privately held companies such as SpaceX or Valve). Everyone gets an ever smaller fief from the top boss, but the top boss has a lot of power.
- samr71 3y ago
  This can be true AND Mars can be Musk's #1 priority. Musk wants to build a Mars colony. DOD wants Brilliant Pebbles / SDI. Perhaps a trade can be made? You'll need much of the same tech for each. If SpaceX is run by DOD, why is it not run by DOD? Why pretend otherwise? The best engineers won't work to build SDI? Thousands work for Boeing/Lockheed. They're all that much worse?
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Lol the DoD giving SpaceX assistance is hilarious claim. And the are run by DoD noless. Complete nonsense with no evidence.
  - georgeg23 3y ago
    Read the links and their citations before you jump to conclusions.
mcpackieh 3y ago
Yes, it's literally a theory about a conspiracy. That doesn't mean it isn't true. And Elon Musk saying he wants to create Mars colonies doesn't make it true, anymore than Howard Hughes saying he wanted to mine magnesium nodules off the ocean floor made that true. Look at Starship objectively. It's not a Mars rocket. That bellyflop through the atmosphere stunt won't work on Mars, and man-rating it even for operation around Earth is extremely dubious. The habitats which would supposedly be used for Mars colonization don't exist and aren't in development, so if you think Starship is a Mars rocket you should realize that it's a bridge to nowhere. Starship is being developed to launch tons of satellites cheap. It makes a lot of sense for that and it makes zero sense for Mars colonization. Given the weight of the circumstantial evidence, particularly the entirety of Michael Griffin's career and role in SpaceX's existence, it is more reasonable to assume they're lying about Mars than to assume Mars is the true motivation. Your prior for Elon Musk lying about anything should be through the roof anyway.
- jwells89 3y ago
  > The habitats which would supposedly be used for Mars colonization don't exist and aren't in development, so if you think Starship is a Mars rocket you should realize that it's a bridge to nowhere. I'm only an enthusiastic layman on the topic of spacefaring, but isn't the launch vehicle a critical variable when designing habitats for other planets? It doesn't seem practical to take anything much further than paper until the constraints of your launch vehicle are known. Habitats designed to be launched on Starship+Superheavy are going to be wildly different from those made to launch on practically anything else because of the vast difference in lift capacity and available volume. To add to that, it arguably doesn't make sense to develop habitats at all unless something similar to Starship is flying. So from that perspective, it would seem to me logical to wait and see if SpaceX can actually make Starship+Superheavy work or not before committing to anything. No point in burning money on something that'll never be practical to launch.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    If they don't start serious habitat development until Starship is ready, then, Starhip will be decades old by the time anybody is ready to make a Mars colony. Besides the structure of the habitats themselves, there a ton of technology that would need to be developed first. Life support equipment and systems, space suits, vehicles, any sort of plan to produce food. Nobody is seriously developing this stuff, you have a few million dollars here and there thrown at university projects but no serious investment. It would take a Manhattan Project sized commitment, but who would pay for that? Not Elon Musk, he says that he assumes other people will. There's no money in Mars colonization, it's a pipe dream for young dreamers. > To add to that, it arguably doesn't make sense to develop habitats at all unless something similar to Starship is flying. It doesn't make sense developing Starship unless you have paying customers lined up. Launching satellite constellations is a market that actually exists, Mars colonization doesn't and won't for decades at least, by which time Starship will likely be obsolete anyway. Furthermore, you're ignoring the part where Starship isn't a Mars rocket and doesn't even resemble a Mars rocket. If Elon Musk had never spoken of Mars, there would be zero reason to suspect that Starship was meant to be a Mars rocket. His words alone are the basis for this belief. How much are his words actually worth to you?

by samr71 3y ago

georgeg23 3y ago

The only person that has to lie is Musk. That's why SpaceX is run as an autocracy. Everyone else drinks the Mars Kool aid. People who have been around a while connect the dots. To be more precise, the company is run by the DoD with significant technical and financial assistance. Elon is the main conduit between those deep resource and the rest of the company. He regularly meets with all teams to ensure they are aligned with "higher purposes". To be even more precise, Elon is a front-man for a right-wing multi-decade program in American hegemony and actualizing it's crowning achievement--the Strategic Defense Initiative.

xNeil 3y ago
can the internet please decide whether SpaceX is an autocracy, or if (as several media outlets put it) Elons companies succeeded in spite of him as opposed to because of him. both of these cannot be true at the same time.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > can the internet please decide whether SpaceX is an autocracy, or if (as several media outlets put it) Elons companies succeeded in spite of him as opposed to because of him. No, the internet isn't a hive mind, and is never going to have simple unitary opinions except as rare coincidence. > both of these cannot be true at the same time. And yet a planet-scale information network can easily include voices that believe each of them simultaneously, because people disagree.
- oblio 3y ago
  Corporations are basically late stage feudal systems, close to absolutist systems, depending on the company (see Meta as an extreme example, or most privately held companies such as SpaceX or Valve). Everyone gets an ever smaller fief from the top boss, but the top boss has a lot of power.
samr71 3y ago
This can be true AND Mars can be Musk's #1 priority. Musk wants to build a Mars colony. DOD wants Brilliant Pebbles / SDI. Perhaps a trade can be made? You'll need much of the same tech for each. If SpaceX is run by DOD, why is it not run by DOD? Why pretend otherwise? The best engineers won't work to build SDI? Thousands work for Boeing/Lockheed. They're all that much worse?
panick21_ 3y ago
Lol the DoD giving SpaceX assistance is hilarious claim. And the are run by DoD noless. Complete nonsense with no evidence.
- georgeg23 3y ago
  Read the links and their citations before you jump to conclusions.

mcpackieh 3y ago

Yes, it's literally a theory about a conspiracy. That doesn't mean it isn't true. And Elon Musk saying he wants to create Mars colonies doesn't make it true, anymore than Howard Hughes saying he wanted to mine magnesium nodules off the ocean floor made that true. Look at Starship objectively. It's not a Mars rocket. That bellyflop through the atmosphere stunt won't work on Mars, and man-rating it even for operation around Earth is extremely dubious. The habitats which would supposedly be used for Mars colonization don't exist and aren't in development, so if you think Starship is a Mars rocket you should realize that it's a bridge to nowhere. Starship is being developed to launch tons of satellites cheap. It makes a lot of sense for that and it makes zero sense for Mars colonization. Given the weight of the circumstantial evidence, particularly the entirety of Michael Griffin's career and role in SpaceX's existence, it is more reasonable to assume they're lying about Mars than to assume Mars is the true motivation. Your prior for Elon Musk lying about anything should be through the roof anyway.

jwells89 3y ago
> The habitats which would supposedly be used for Mars colonization don't exist and aren't in development, so if you think Starship is a Mars rocket you should realize that it's a bridge to nowhere. I'm only an enthusiastic layman on the topic of spacefaring, but isn't the launch vehicle a critical variable when designing habitats for other planets? It doesn't seem practical to take anything much further than paper until the constraints of your launch vehicle are known. Habitats designed to be launched on Starship+Superheavy are going to be wildly different from those made to launch on practically anything else because of the vast difference in lift capacity and available volume. To add to that, it arguably doesn't make sense to develop habitats at all unless something similar to Starship is flying. So from that perspective, it would seem to me logical to wait and see if SpaceX can actually make Starship+Superheavy work or not before committing to anything. No point in burning money on something that'll never be practical to launch.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  If they don't start serious habitat development until Starship is ready, then, Starhip will be decades old by the time anybody is ready to make a Mars colony. Besides the structure of the habitats themselves, there a ton of technology that would need to be developed first. Life support equipment and systems, space suits, vehicles, any sort of plan to produce food. Nobody is seriously developing this stuff, you have a few million dollars here and there thrown at university projects but no serious investment. It would take a Manhattan Project sized commitment, but who would pay for that? Not Elon Musk, he says that he assumes other people will. There's no money in Mars colonization, it's a pipe dream for young dreamers. > To add to that, it arguably doesn't make sense to develop habitats at all unless something similar to Starship is flying. It doesn't make sense developing Starship unless you have paying customers lined up. Launching satellite constellations is a market that actually exists, Mars colonization doesn't and won't for decades at least, by which time Starship will likely be obsolete anyway. Furthermore, you're ignoring the part where Starship isn't a Mars rocket and doesn't even resemble a Mars rocket. If Elon Musk had never spoken of Mars, there would be zero reason to suspect that Starship was meant to be a Mars rocket. His words alone are the basis for this belief. How much are his words actually worth to you?