6 ms·

What specific expertise does SpaceX have in the air traffic control realm? What was the bidding process like? Do other regions / nations have more advanced ATC

What specific expertise does SpaceX have in the air traffic control realm? What was the bidding process like? Do other regions / nations have more advanced ATC than we do, and what can we learn from them? Is there a problem statement beyond "it has some old bits"? What are the specific goals? Just feels like corruption, tbh.

r0ckarong 2y ago
Bidding process? Learn from other nations? Problem statement? Goals? The problem statement is: I don't own this yet. And the goal is: I run everything now. It IS blatant corruption. A foreign national is using his private enterprises to take over government agencies and is backed by a traitor who only cares about his own money and power. If there ever was a more blatant episode of corruption it's what's going on in the US right now.
- StackRanker3000 2y ago
  I agree with everything else you’ve written, but Musk is an American citizen, since a couple of decades.
  - Gys 2y ago
    He is also has a special Chinese status and large interests there. See for example https://newrepublic.com/article/191265/elon-musk-us-china-usaid-tesla https://newrepublic.com/article/191265/elon-musk-us-china-us...
- amazingamazing 2y ago
  How can anyone take this post seriously when it gets basic facts wrong.
  - sumeno 2y ago
    People take Musk seriously and he gets basic facts wrong constantly
    - amazingamazing 2y ago
      I wasn't talking about the poster, I was talking about the post. If Musk is writing things that gets basic stuff wrong, then that shouldn't be taken seriously, either.
      - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
        "It’s only really like the tenth percentile of the adult population who’d be gullible enough to fall for this," the data scientist told Musk during a face-to-face meeting. "Fuck you!" Musk shouted back. https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-scientist-resigned-twitter-blasted-181505572.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-scientist-resigned-twitter-b... Musk is not a terribly bright individual. He gets a lot of things wrong, and he does not care to be told he is wrong.
raverbashing 2y ago
> What specific expertise does SpaceX have in the air traffic control realm? None? > What was the bidding process like? What bidding process? Remember when it's the "special WH employee" hiring his own company that's all fine and dandy > Is there a problem statement beyond "it has some old bits"? What are the specific goals? Every system can be improved, but I think the current issues with ATC in the US are not of a technical nature per se ATC is much more than controllers watching planes on radar screens Also remember this is a system that has been continuously evolving since WWII pretty much (and possibly before) and that one of the recent "breaking backwards compatibility" was NDBs being decommissioned in the US (bit by bit)
- ivewonyoung 2y ago
  > Remember when it's the "special WH employee" hiring his own company that's all fine and dandy Source that SpaceX was hired for this? The article makes no such claims and has no sources saying that.
PaywallBuster 2y ago
article didn't they they got the project and any project would take months/years even with the best and brightest on the project > get a firsthand look at the current system, learn what air traffic controllers like and dislike about their current tools, and envision how we can make a new, better, modern and safer system based on this they can come in to scope out a project and send it out for bidding
- text0404 2y ago
  where have they indicated that they will open this up for bidding?
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
    An article 3 months from now... "According to Musk, the efficiencies gained by leveraging the exposure of the assessment team make SpaceX the only viable vendor. 'A bidding process to select the only possible applicant would be silly.'"
i80and 2y ago
> Just feels like corruption, tbh. If a democrat did this, it would (rightly!) be seen as a front-page scandal on the scale of Teapot Dome if not worse.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  ...it's literally seen as a front-page scandal on HN and the linked source though.
  - intended 2y ago
    On page 3 now.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
    Where is the outrage from the one group that can actually do anything about this: Republican members of congress and Republican senators? There's already been a handful of impeachment-level events, such as the blatant quid pro quo of the Adams corruption charges dismissal which resulted in a series of DoJ resignations reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre. You know, a critical event that shifted public and Republican opinion of Nixon, leading to his resignation under the threat of impeachment. Democratic congresspeople and senators can't do much without at least some of their Republican colleagues standing up to the bullies currently running the party. And no, Susan Collins' inevitable but ineffectual "concerns" isn't the kind of outrage I mean.
    - therealpygon 2y ago
      The answer seems pretty simple. They are all spineless loyalists or want to preserve their power these days. Shameful.
    - cmurf 2y ago
      Why would they be outraged? They're doing the job they were hired to do. This is what their constituency has wanted for many years and demanded: pure unadulterated unwavering unquestioned support for their emperor, and he is Trump. They want a mean daddy. They finally found him. All of the people with balls have been fired or quit. North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about “credible death threats” when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination. - Vanity Fair, “They’re Scared Shitless” To whatever degree they are really scared (Liz Cheney is far braver than these MAGA elected kooks, scared of their own shadows), let's accept the premise for the sake of the argument. They will permit an incendiary fire of epic proportion well beyond what we've seen so far before they do anything. They may in fact not be capable of it under any circumstances. And if that is the case, is there even a functioning Senate right now? In terms of 5 USC 3331? I think not. And that means the republic is in abeyance. It's a principate now. For however long, really depends on the American public - not any elected officials.
gitfan86 2y ago
[flagged]
- MourYother 2y ago
  https://imgur.com/gallery/doge-math-wow-very-bad-much-corrupt-atRMd77 https://imgur.com/gallery/doge-math-wow-very-bad-much-corrup...
- XzAeRosho 2y ago
  If things felt corrupt before, why not improve the processes? Why keep doing the same but with the companies the administration in turn likes the best?
  - gitfan86 2y ago
    Removing the process is the improvement. This is what we voted for. Less processes not more and actual results. Ask ChatGPT to compare and contrast Kamala Harris's effectiveness as "broadband Tzar" as compared to SpaceX Starlink.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
      Less process creates transparency gaps which become opportunities for more corruption.
      - gitfan86 2y ago
        There is a balance in process vs. efficiency. The idea that anyone removing any processes is only doing it to insert corruption isn't a valid argument against efficiency
    - longtimelistnr 2y ago
      Got it, so frame the question using language hinting i'm looking for an anti Harris response.
      - 2y ago
jillyboel 2y ago
> Do other regions / nations have more advanced ATC According to Trump, yes. This is what he said: > When I land in my plane, privately, I use a system from another country because...I won't tell you what country... because the captain says this system is so bad, it's so obsolete, that we can't have that. - https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/02/06/trump-conflate-air-traffic-control-private-jet-navigation-system/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/02/06...
- flakeoil 2y ago
  That article says Trump is confused. > Trump ... seemed to mix up a plane’s onboard electronics system with the federal air traffic control system.
- notahacker 2y ago
  I think the intro explaining that this is not true and Trump was most likely misunderstanding his pilot's comments about onboard electronics is the key bit of that article... Fits in with the first term in which Trump baffled airline executives by assuring them that he'd help solve the problem with the airports giving them the wrong equipment[1], also based on apparently failing to understand an anecdote from his private pilot There is actually a very long term project to modernise US ATC (less on safety grounds and more on congestion minimization grounds) it's even one in which theoretically a satellite constellation operator could have some involvement as a data provider. But but it's something of an understatement to suggest that this is unlikely to be advanced by an administration lead by someone who thinks he understands aviation based on misunderstanding his pilot and someone whose first foray into improving the FAA was to arbitrarily fire hundreds of FAA staff and whose main goal for the FAA is to deregulate space launches... [1]https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-aviation-industry/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/re...
  - blisterpeanuts 2y ago
    > someone whose first foray into improving the FAA was to arbitrarily fire hundreds of FAA staff 400 non-ATC, non-safety related probationary new hires, out of 45,000.
xnx 2y ago
There is no more thought process than: "Elon smart and hard working. Government employees dumb and lazy (and also woke)"
ivewonyoung 2y ago
Why is everyone assuming SpaceX is getting paid for this by the government? The article doesn't even say that SpaceX is getting paid by the govt for it, they just put it in the headline and use weasel words in the story to make people come up with assumptions that may not be true. The govt can be paying those folks directly or Musk himself can be paying them like he did for some DOGE team members.
- soco 2y ago
  But isn't SpaceX money coming mostly from the government anyway? So still your pockets getting emptied, only over two extra hoops which each take their share as well. All this to bring the magic solution called software engineering because we all know how software consultants always save the business.
  - starspangled 2y ago
    No it isn't. Most of their revenue comes from starlink and rocket launch services that they sell in open markets. Significant improvement in cost and capabilities over competition that enabled SpaceX to capture so much of the market has massively driven prices down and certainly saved taxpayers a lot of money for the services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio... SpaceX does get government grants of course like most companies. It's by far not most of their revenue though, and generally competitively available and tied to particular goals. Investing and supporting in high tech, high value industries like this is often a good thing and returns more than cost to the country, as it certainly has with SpaceX. So it's the opposite of pockets getting emptied.
    - blisterpeanuts 2y ago
      Not to mention the national security advantage of being able to service the ISS and to launch humans into space without help from adversarial regimes.
- karles 2y ago
  Great. Lets just have "someone" do "something" while they "might" get paid by "someone". Sounds like the ideal government...
geetee 2y ago
Because software developers have never worked in an unfamiliar domain, which necessitated interviewing the subject matter experts to gain perspective on their problems and needs.
- stevage 2y ago
  History is absolutely replete with "technologists" underestimating the difficulty of transforming complex government systems. Health, education, why not add aviation safety to the list.
looofooo0 2y ago
What specific expertise does SpaceX have in the air traffic control realm? Building software which respect to probabilistic risk analysis. This includes techniques such as abstract interpretation and theorem for for the logic of dynamical system etc. I guess spacex expertise in these realm is quite advanced and they do something useful.
- SirFatty 2y ago
  So in other words, you don't really know.
  - looofooo0 2y ago
    https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150904-how-spacex-and-boeing-plan-to-keep-nasa-astronauts-safe https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150904-how-spacex-and-b...
    - text0404 2y ago
      none of this has anything to do with air traffic control. and it's about NASA's agreement with contractors like SpaceX, not SpaceX's relationship with the FAA.
      - looofooo0 2y ago
        Sure, but they need to calculate risk of their stuff. So they at least know how to do that. So they will understand how risk assessment works and can apply this into analyzing system used and evaluating available system on the markets. Anyway this is the least concern of what the Trump admin is doing. They siding with Russia putting America's carefully crafted world order down the drain. Read: winter is coming - garry kasparov
        jhanschoo 2y ago
        My understanding regarding ATC issues today is that they are terribly understaffed, and several news outlets have reported on this. If that is the case I don't know how much fancy modelling can help.
JohnTHaller 2y ago
SpaceX has no experience with air traffic control. It's just more corruption. We definitely don't want a startup that "moves fast and breaks things" having anything to do with air traffic control.

r0ckarong 2y ago

Bidding process? Learn from other nations? Problem statement? Goals? The problem statement is: I don't own this yet. And the goal is: I run everything now. It IS blatant corruption. A foreign national is using his private enterprises to take over government agencies and is backed by a traitor who only cares about his own money and power. If there ever was a more blatant episode of corruption it's what's going on in the US right now.

StackRanker3000 2y ago
I agree with everything else you’ve written, but Musk is an American citizen, since a couple of decades.
- Gys 2y ago
  He is also has a special Chinese status and large interests there. See for example https://newrepublic.com/article/191265/elon-musk-us-china-usaid-tesla https://newrepublic.com/article/191265/elon-musk-us-china-us...
amazingamazing 2y ago
How can anyone take this post seriously when it gets basic facts wrong.
- sumeno 2y ago
  People take Musk seriously and he gets basic facts wrong constantly
  - amazingamazing 2y ago
    I wasn't talking about the poster, I was talking about the post. If Musk is writing things that gets basic stuff wrong, then that shouldn't be taken seriously, either.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
      "It’s only really like the tenth percentile of the adult population who’d be gullible enough to fall for this," the data scientist told Musk during a face-to-face meeting. "Fuck you!" Musk shouted back. https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-scientist-resigned-twitter-blasted-181505572.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-scientist-resigned-twitter-b... Musk is not a terribly bright individual. He gets a lot of things wrong, and he does not care to be told he is wrong.

raverbashing 2y ago

> What specific expertise does SpaceX have in the air traffic control realm? None? > What was the bidding process like? What bidding process? Remember when it's the "special WH employee" hiring his own company that's all fine and dandy > Is there a problem statement beyond "it has some old bits"? What are the specific goals? Every system can be improved, but I think the current issues with ATC in the US are not of a technical nature per se ATC is much more than controllers watching planes on radar screens Also remember this is a system that has been continuously evolving since WWII pretty much (and possibly before) and that one of the recent "breaking backwards compatibility" was NDBs being decommissioned in the US (bit by bit)

ivewonyoung 2y ago
> Remember when it's the "special WH employee" hiring his own company that's all fine and dandy Source that SpaceX was hired for this? The article makes no such claims and has no sources saying that.

PaywallBuster 2y ago

article didn't they they got the project and any project would take months/years even with the best and brightest on the project > get a firsthand look at the current system, learn what air traffic controllers like and dislike about their current tools, and envision how we can make a new, better, modern and safer system based on this they can come in to scope out a project and send it out for bidding

text0404 2y ago
where have they indicated that they will open this up for bidding?
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
  An article 3 months from now... "According to Musk, the efficiencies gained by leveraging the exposure of the assessment team make SpaceX the only viable vendor. 'A bidding process to select the only possible applicant would be silly.'"

i80and 2y ago

> Just feels like corruption, tbh. If a democrat did this, it would (rightly!) be seen as a front-page scandal on the scale of Teapot Dome if not worse.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
...it's literally seen as a front-page scandal on HN and the linked source though.
- intended 2y ago
  On page 3 now.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
  Where is the outrage from the one group that can actually do anything about this: Republican members of congress and Republican senators? There's already been a handful of impeachment-level events, such as the blatant quid pro quo of the Adams corruption charges dismissal which resulted in a series of DoJ resignations reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre. You know, a critical event that shifted public and Republican opinion of Nixon, leading to his resignation under the threat of impeachment. Democratic congresspeople and senators can't do much without at least some of their Republican colleagues standing up to the bullies currently running the party. And no, Susan Collins' inevitable but ineffectual "concerns" isn't the kind of outrage I mean.
  - therealpygon 2y ago
    The answer seems pretty simple. They are all spineless loyalists or want to preserve their power these days. Shameful.
  - cmurf 2y ago
    Why would they be outraged? They're doing the job they were hired to do. This is what their constituency has wanted for many years and demanded: pure unadulterated unwavering unquestioned support for their emperor, and he is Trump. They want a mean daddy. They finally found him. All of the people with balls have been fired or quit. North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about “credible death threats” when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination. - Vanity Fair, “They’re Scared Shitless” To whatever degree they are really scared (Liz Cheney is far braver than these MAGA elected kooks, scared of their own shadows), let's accept the premise for the sake of the argument. They will permit an incendiary fire of epic proportion well beyond what we've seen so far before they do anything. They may in fact not be capable of it under any circumstances. And if that is the case, is there even a functioning Senate right now? In terms of 5 USC 3331? I think not. And that means the republic is in abeyance. It's a principate now. For however long, really depends on the American public - not any elected officials.

gitfan86 2y ago

[flagged]

MourYother 2y ago
https://imgur.com/gallery/doge-math-wow-very-bad-much-corrupt-atRMd77 https://imgur.com/gallery/doge-math-wow-very-bad-much-corrup...
XzAeRosho 2y ago
If things felt corrupt before, why not improve the processes? Why keep doing the same but with the companies the administration in turn likes the best?
- gitfan86 2y ago
  Removing the process is the improvement. This is what we voted for. Less processes not more and actual results. Ask ChatGPT to compare and contrast Kamala Harris's effectiveness as "broadband Tzar" as compared to SpaceX Starlink.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
    Less process creates transparency gaps which become opportunities for more corruption.
    - gitfan86 2y ago
      There is a balance in process vs. efficiency. The idea that anyone removing any processes is only doing it to insert corruption isn't a valid argument against efficiency
  - longtimelistnr 2y ago
    Got it, so frame the question using language hinting i'm looking for an anti Harris response.
    - 2y ago

jillyboel 2y ago

> Do other regions / nations have more advanced ATC According to Trump, yes. This is what he said: > When I land in my plane, privately, I use a system from another country because...I won't tell you what country... because the captain says this system is so bad, it's so obsolete, that we can't have that. - https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/02/06/trump-conflate-air-traffic-control-private-jet-navigation-system/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/02/06...

flakeoil 2y ago
That article says Trump is confused. > Trump ... seemed to mix up a plane’s onboard electronics system with the federal air traffic control system.
notahacker 2y ago
I think the intro explaining that this is not true and Trump was most likely misunderstanding his pilot's comments about onboard electronics is the key bit of that article... Fits in with the first term in which Trump baffled airline executives by assuring them that he'd help solve the problem with the airports giving them the wrong equipment[1], also based on apparently failing to understand an anecdote from his private pilot There is actually a very long term project to modernise US ATC (less on safety grounds and more on congestion minimization grounds) it's even one in which theoretically a satellite constellation operator could have some involvement as a data provider. But but it's something of an understatement to suggest that this is unlikely to be advanced by an administration lead by someone who thinks he understands aviation based on misunderstanding his pilot and someone whose first foray into improving the FAA was to arbitrarily fire hundreds of FAA staff and whose main goal for the FAA is to deregulate space launches... [1]https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-aviation-industry/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/re...
- blisterpeanuts 2y ago
  > someone whose first foray into improving the FAA was to arbitrarily fire hundreds of FAA staff 400 non-ATC, non-safety related probationary new hires, out of 45,000.

xnx 2y ago

There is no more thought process than: "Elon smart and hard working. Government employees dumb and lazy (and also woke)"

ivewonyoung 2y ago

Why is everyone assuming SpaceX is getting paid for this by the government? The article doesn't even say that SpaceX is getting paid by the govt for it, they just put it in the headline and use weasel words in the story to make people come up with assumptions that may not be true. The govt can be paying those folks directly or Musk himself can be paying them like he did for some DOGE team members.

soco 2y ago
But isn't SpaceX money coming mostly from the government anyway? So still your pockets getting emptied, only over two extra hoops which each take their share as well. All this to bring the magic solution called software engineering because we all know how software consultants always save the business.
- starspangled 2y ago
  No it isn't. Most of their revenue comes from starlink and rocket launch services that they sell in open markets. Significant improvement in cost and capabilities over competition that enabled SpaceX to capture so much of the market has massively driven prices down and certainly saved taxpayers a lot of money for the services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio... SpaceX does get government grants of course like most companies. It's by far not most of their revenue though, and generally competitively available and tied to particular goals. Investing and supporting in high tech, high value industries like this is often a good thing and returns more than cost to the country, as it certainly has with SpaceX. So it's the opposite of pockets getting emptied.
  - blisterpeanuts 2y ago
    Not to mention the national security advantage of being able to service the ISS and to launch humans into space without help from adversarial regimes.
karles 2y ago
Great. Lets just have "someone" do "something" while they "might" get paid by "someone". Sounds like the ideal government...

geetee 2y ago

Because software developers have never worked in an unfamiliar domain, which necessitated interviewing the subject matter experts to gain perspective on their problems and needs.

stevage 2y ago
History is absolutely replete with "technologists" underestimating the difficulty of transforming complex government systems. Health, education, why not add aviation safety to the list.

looofooo0 2y ago

What specific expertise does SpaceX have in the air traffic control realm? Building software which respect to probabilistic risk analysis. This includes techniques such as abstract interpretation and theorem for for the logic of dynamical system etc. I guess spacex expertise in these realm is quite advanced and they do something useful.

SirFatty 2y ago
So in other words, you don't really know.
- looofooo0 2y ago
  https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150904-how-spacex-and-boeing-plan-to-keep-nasa-astronauts-safe https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150904-how-spacex-and-b...
  - text0404 2y ago
    none of this has anything to do with air traffic control. and it's about NASA's agreement with contractors like SpaceX, not SpaceX's relationship with the FAA.
    - looofooo0 2y ago
      Sure, but they need to calculate risk of their stuff. So they at least know how to do that. So they will understand how risk assessment works and can apply this into analyzing system used and evaluating available system on the markets. Anyway this is the least concern of what the Trump admin is doing. They siding with Russia putting America's carefully crafted world order down the drain. Read: winter is coming - garry kasparov
      - jhanschoo 2y ago
        My understanding regarding ATC issues today is that they are terribly understaffed, and several news outlets have reported on this. If that is the case I don't know how much fancy modelling can help.

JohnTHaller 2y ago

SpaceX has no experience with air traffic control. It's just more corruption. We definitely don't want a startup that "moves fast and breaks things" having anything to do with air traffic control.