3 ms·

Butch Wilmore says Elon Musk is "absolutely factual" on Dragon's delayed return

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hkpack 2y ago
> Wilmore: I can tell you at the outset, all of us have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously, respect and admiration for our president of the United States, Donald Trump. We appreciate them. We appreciate all that they do for us, for human space flight, for our nation. The words they said, politics, I mean, that's part of life. We understand that. And there's an important reason why we have a political system, a political system that we do have, and we're behind it 100 percent. Wow, USA is indeed turning into a caricature of the USSR. I was very young then but still almost having a de ja vu reading these lines.
- skissane 2y ago
  > Wow, USA is indeed turning into a caricature of the USSR. I don't think NASA astronauts 20 years ago would have said anything different. Any NASA astronaut is going to talk up their respect for the President, regardless of which party they are from or what they privately think of said President, because it is seen as part of the job description. That was true in the 1960s, it is true today, it has been true every point in-between. Even Musk – 20 years ago, if a NASA astronaut had been asked by journalists for their opinion on a senior advisor to the President, or their opinion on the CEO of a major NASA vendor, the expectation would be either they say something positive or find a way to dodge the question
manbart 2y ago
“Welcome back to Earth. Your fired, GTFO”
defrost 2y ago
The current ArsTechnica headline is (as here on HN): Butch Wilmore says Elon Musk is “absolutely factual” on Dragon’s delayed return The last part of URL is butch-and-suni-send-mixed-messages-on-whether-politics-delayed-their-return and Mixed Messages nails it. In the body there is: For what it is worth, all of the reporting done by Ars over the last nine months suggests the decision to return Wilmore and Williams this spring was driven by technical reasons and NASA's needs on board the International Space Station, rather than because of politics. Q. Did politics influence NASA's decision for you to stay longer in space? Wilmore: From my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all. From our standpoint, I think that they would agree, we came up prepared to stay long, even though we plan to stay short. That's what we do in human spaceflight. In short, Wilmore doesn't believe that politics delayed their return, as was claimed by Musk. The best support from the headline comes from: Q. Elon Musk said he made an offer to bring Butch and Suni home last year, but it was denied by the White House. Is this true? Wilmore: I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual. We have no information on that, though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how that process went. That's information that we simply don't have. So I believe him. Wilmore believes that Musk is being factual when Musk asserts he made an offer to bring them back. He skirts any comment on why that offer was not taken up, having earlier stated he doesn't believe politics played a part. Musk makes a lot of public offers .. he offered a submarine that wasn't practical, he offered a 420 weed joke for Twitter and got nailed to the mast with it by the SEC. It's likely factual that he offered to bring back this crew early. It likely wasn't practical for any number of reasons.
- techpeach 2y ago
  I’m not saying that this interview was conducted at gunpoint, but I might make a connection between Wilmore’s views on Trump and Musk? And who has control of Wilmore’s entire future at the moment.
  - defrost 2y ago
    It's pretty clear he's responding as any good senior pilot, technician, military operative, coal face "doer" responds almost all the time under any administration or command .. steer clear of politics, stick the to the technical stuff, avoid comment on anything "above pay grade".
msie 2y ago
Wilmore: I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual. We have no information on that, though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how that process went. That's information that we simply don't have. So I believe him. I don't know all those details, and I don't think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe that you would be hoping for. I am so confused.
- dekhn 2y ago
  he's saying that musk was correct when he claimed he made an offer to the biden administration to help return the astronauts using SpaceX. I don't think he cares that much about the "and musk was rejected for political reasons, not technical ones" part.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

> Wilmore: I can tell you at the outset, all of us have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously, respect and admiration for our president of the United States, Donald Trump. We appreciate them. We appreciate all that they do for us, for human space flight, for our nation. The words they said, politics, I mean, that's part of life. We understand that. And there's an important reason why we have a political system, a political system that we do have, and we're behind it 100 percent. Wow, USA is indeed turning into a caricature of the USSR. I was very young then but still almost having a de ja vu reading these lines.

skissane 2y ago
> Wow, USA is indeed turning into a caricature of the USSR. I don't think NASA astronauts 20 years ago would have said anything different. Any NASA astronaut is going to talk up their respect for the President, regardless of which party they are from or what they privately think of said President, because it is seen as part of the job description. That was true in the 1960s, it is true today, it has been true every point in-between. Even Musk – 20 years ago, if a NASA astronaut had been asked by journalists for their opinion on a senior advisor to the President, or their opinion on the CEO of a major NASA vendor, the expectation would be either they say something positive or find a way to dodge the question

manbart 2y ago

“Welcome back to Earth. Your fired, GTFO”

defrost 2y ago

The current ArsTechnica headline is (as here on HN): Butch Wilmore says Elon Musk is “absolutely factual” on Dragon’s delayed return The last part of URL is butch-and-suni-send-mixed-messages-on-whether-politics-delayed-their-return and Mixed Messages nails it. In the body there is: For what it is worth, all of the reporting done by Ars over the last nine months suggests the decision to return Wilmore and Williams this spring was driven by technical reasons and NASA's needs on board the International Space Station, rather than because of politics. Q. Did politics influence NASA's decision for you to stay longer in space? Wilmore: From my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all. From our standpoint, I think that they would agree, we came up prepared to stay long, even though we plan to stay short. That's what we do in human spaceflight. In short, Wilmore doesn't believe that politics delayed their return, as was claimed by Musk. The best support from the headline comes from: Q. Elon Musk said he made an offer to bring Butch and Suni home last year, but it was denied by the White House. Is this true? Wilmore: I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual. We have no information on that, though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how that process went. That's information that we simply don't have. So I believe him. Wilmore believes that Musk is being factual when Musk asserts he made an offer to bring them back. He skirts any comment on why that offer was not taken up, having earlier stated he doesn't believe politics played a part. Musk makes a lot of public offers .. he offered a submarine that wasn't practical, he offered a 420 weed joke for Twitter and got nailed to the mast with it by the SEC. It's likely factual that he offered to bring back this crew early. It likely wasn't practical for any number of reasons.

techpeach 2y ago
I’m not saying that this interview was conducted at gunpoint, but I might make a connection between Wilmore’s views on Trump and Musk? And who has control of Wilmore’s entire future at the moment.
- defrost 2y ago
  It's pretty clear he's responding as any good senior pilot, technician, military operative, coal face "doer" responds almost all the time under any administration or command .. steer clear of politics, stick the to the technical stuff, avoid comment on anything "above pay grade".

msie 2y ago

Wilmore: I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual. We have no information on that, though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how that process went. That's information that we simply don't have. So I believe him. I don't know all those details, and I don't think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe that you would be hoping for. I am so confused.

dekhn 2y ago
he's saying that musk was correct when he claimed he made an offer to the biden administration to help return the astronauts using SpaceX. I don't think he cares that much about the "and musk was rejected for political reasons, not technical ones" part.