18 ms·

Eric Berger has a good summary on the narrative: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/can-nasa-remain-nonpartisan-when-basic-spaceflight-truths-are-shredded/

Eric Berger has a good summary on the narrative: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/can-nasa-remain-nonpartisan-when-basic-spaceflight-truths-are-shredded/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/can-nasa-remain-nonpar...

pavlov 2y ago
Berger is an excellent journalist. He’s very knowledgeable about space topics, has good sources, and has been extremely fair to Musk in the past. When he says it’s a “throne of lies”, a line has been crossed.
- chinathrow 2y ago
  What line?
  - n4r9 2y ago
    Exploiting and lying about the monumental efforts of a pioneering industry for cheap political points certainly feels like a line to me.
    - nodoll 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - pjc50 2y ago
      Eh, the whole space race has its origins in a propaganda war with the USSR staffed by ex-Nazi engineers. It's not more deserving of sacred purity than anything else. On the other hand, the sheer lying about everything is exhaustive and corrosive to the public sphere. (also while dealing with the villain of the week we've forgotten about the previous villain responsible for this situation, Boeing)
      - Y_Y 2y ago
        > Eh, the whole space race has its origins in a propaganda war with the USSR staffed by ex-Nazi engineers. It's not more deserving of sacred purity than anything else. I certainly agree with this, but at the same time I think it's a red herring. So much good tech comes from war, but the nice thing (imho) is that it's "path independent". I'm no more going to scorn the work of Werner von Braun than I would John von Neumann.
        voidUpdate 2y ago
        I also think that calling von Braun a Nazi isn't necessarily correct. He worked for the Nazi party, but if he didn't it probably wouldn't have worked out very well for him, and I don't think he supported their ideals all that much. He also always wanted to make his rockets, and working at Peenemünde gave him the opportunity to do that, even if it did require PoW labour. Obviously I'm not saying he was a saint, but I don't think he was as "evil" as some people make him out to be, and I don't think many people came out of the war with clean hands. He just really liked making rockets
        somenameforme 2y ago
        I'm not the downvoter here, but somehow this made me think of an old play on the title of a biographical film about him: 'I aim at the stars! But sometimes I hit London...'
        variaga 2y ago
        Don't say that he's hypocritical- say rather that he's apolitical. 'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down - that's not my department' says Werner Von Braun. Some have harsh words for this man of renown. But some think our attitude should be one of gratitude, like the widows and cripples in old London town who owe their large pension to Wernher von Braun Tom Leher, "Werner Von Braun"
        Y_Y 2y ago
        FWIW I didn't mean to make any accusations about von Braun's character. I was taking "ex-Nazi engineer" to mean someone to had been an engineer in the Nazi regime. In fairness though, he was an NSDAP member.
    - porphyra 2y ago
      Let's not forget that right now it seems that only SpaceX is putting in the "monumental efforts" to advance the "pioneeribg industry", being responsible for the vast majority of launches, the only safe crewed spacecraft, as well as pushing the frontier of space travel with ambitious new projects such as Starship.
      - pavlov 2y ago
        Does that justify blatant lies?
        tim333 2y ago
        I'm worried spacex will end up a bit like Tesla, largely abandoned for Musk to go off on some political weirdness.
        scryers_bloom 2y ago
        Doubt it. Musk only owns something like ~15% of Tesla, and owns about 50% of spacex. He knows tesla is overvalued immensely and wants to deeply integrate himself with government to make sure spacex becomes the de facto space org. for the United States (possibly).
        trompetenaccoun 2y ago
        What "blatant lies" though? The question hasn't really been answered. The user wrote: >Exploiting and lying about the monumental efforts of a pioneering industry for cheap political points I don't know what this means. When someone tells a blatant lie, it would be easy to quote them for a start. What 'monumental effort' was lied about? If it's about Boeing then I have to say I too think the company is doing a terrible job and if anyone is lying about the effort it's them, there have been numerous whistleblowers who came out and talked about the coverups at Boeing.
        n4r9 2y ago
        I didn't personally use the word "blatant", but when I said "lying" I was referring to claims that: * The Biden administration either forgot about or deliberately chose to leave astronauts in space for political reasons. * Trump's request accelerated the decision to bring the astronauts home. "Monumental efforts" was a more general comment about the space industry, including the activities of both NASA and SpaceX. Bringing astronauts home from space when equipment has gone faulty is a challenge I do not envy whatsoever. For Trump to claim credit in the venture is bordering on obscene.
- SLWW 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - fzeroracer 2y ago
    You're effectively tone policing an article for not being kind enough to the current administration that is lying their ass off about everything they do every step of the way.
    - dapf 2y ago
      [dead]
    - SLWW 2y ago
      I'm not tone policing, I'm saying he sounds condescending like the rest of these types of articles... making it sound like noise, adding to the static. I didn't say he was wrong in what he was saying, I'm just seeing this as an outsider who immediately gets a sour taste in my mouth. Tone policing is an ad hominem argument focusing on the tone and not the merit to DISCREDIT the information within, i am not intending to discredit him, i don't dispute his factual claims, just noting that he made it harder to see his side of things from my perspective.
  - pveierland 2y ago
    Berger is not a "one note journalist". He literally wrote the book "Liftoff" which is great telling of the story of SpaceX, and has covered space topics in extensive detail for a long time. The article is important because the narrative told by the administration is clearly not true and in bad faith, and it is right to call it out.
    - MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
      My impression is that Berger is well meaning, but out of his element. By asking "Can space remain nonpartisan?", as if any government agency was even remotely non-partisan to begin with, or as if that was even a theoretical possibility, betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how government functions.
- someperson 2y ago
  Just noting 'throne of lies' is a subheading and not in the body of the article. I don't know how Ars Technica does things, but in some news outlets a separate editor have control over titles and subheading rather than the author of the article.
  - creesch 2y ago
    I mean, if you read the rest of the article the subheading fits. So, it doesn't really change the message.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    Maybe, but he did write > And still, the lies came.
  - pavon 2y ago
    IIRC Ars has stated that the story author is the ones that writes the headers/subheaders, but they write multiple and A/B testing picks the one to show.
- bheadmaster 2y ago
  I wasn't very convinced by his arguments - the main one being: Senior NASA officials earlier this month confirmed, publicly and on the record, that the decision was made by the space agency in the best interests of the International Space Station Program. Not for political reasons. To be a little snarky here - so Senior NASA officials: honest, Musk: liar? If, hypothetically, NASA was pressured for political reasons, I don't think Senior NASA officials would reveal it to the public anyway. So the fact that they said it's not for political reasons doesn't really prove anything for either side of the argument.
  - hoseja 2y ago
    NASA, the pork factory, not impartial? Impossible!
  - Denote6737 2y ago
    What about all the other things. For example the crew dragon was docked back in september waiting for return. The last administration could have called for return at any point before the inaguration to claim glory, but didn't because they aren't hacks.
    - bheadmaster 2y ago
      What do you mean? The fact that they didn't return the astronauts implies the last administration's integrity?
      - walls 2y ago
        Yes, it shows they weren't manipulating NASA for political points.
        bheadmaster 2y ago
        That does not make sense. Did they care more about "not manipulating NASA for political points" than about astronauts who were stuck in space for 9 months, with all the harmful effects that it entails?
- kypro 2y ago
  Firstly, I understand people will disagree with me on this and that's fine – if you disagree please just explain why. Based on what I've read on this, I can see why Trump and Elon MIGHT feel like the return flight was held back for political reasons... But I'm not really able to take either side of this argument as it stands, so I'll give my thoughts for why that is in the hope someone might be able to convince me one way or the other... Firstly, the assumption that NASA is apolitical should be questioned. This might just be my ignorance, but I still haven't seen any good reasoning for why NASA would delay the return flight. As others have noted the capsule was already there, but NASA seemingly just decided to randomly keep them up there months longer than necessary? Why? And while it's not fair to blame the Biden administration for this directly, ultimately the actions of any government agency would be the responsibility of the current administration to some extent, so if there was any suspicion that the return flight was being pushed back for political reasons the Biden administration should have intervened. I imagine if Elon did push for an earlier return and was denied this without a good reason he might have questioned why, and I could imagine someone in that position might assume a political motive – perhaps reasonably depending on those private conversations had. I also think there's an argument to be made that if the Biden administration was friendlier with Elon and didn't go out of their way to alienate him that this return flight would have happened earlier too. Perhaps because Elon could have spoke to Biden directly as he did with Trump, or because NASA would have changed their calculation on the PR of the return. I have tried repeatedly to find a reason why the return flight might have been delayed, but haven't been able to find any good reason for this so I'm on the fence about why this might have happened. If someone can give me a reasonable explanation for why they weren't returned earlier (especially if it's a reason Elon would have been aware of) I'd likely conclude Elon is most likely lying. Either way the argument, "Elon is wrong because the capsule was up there the whole time so they could have been brought back whenever, but NASA just decided to push it back" is not a convincing explanation that there was no political calculation here.
  - echoangle 2y ago
    The normal process is that you always have at least one US and one Russian Vehicle docked to the ISS. In emergencies, each crewmember uses their spacecraft to return to earth. The normal rotation is that an additional spacecraft arrives at the ISS (so there are now 3 vehicles docked in total) and then the older spacecraft leaves with its crew. So before the single dragon leaves, a new dragon would arrive. I think the general idea is to always have at least some Russians and Americans on the ISS at all times (although they are doing swapped missions now so even having only one vehicle left would ensure that most of the time) and to always have crew on the ISS, even if one vehicle needs to return early due to technical problems.
- weberer 2y ago
  >"We're going to stand by for splashdown located in the Gulf of America," she said. >Ah, yes. The Gulf of America. >This is why we can't have nice things. That doesn't sound like an "excellent journalist". It sounds like a Redditor.
  - Gareth321 2y ago
    I cringed reading that. It's like something an edgy West coast teenage Redditor would write.
  - pavlov 2y ago
    Yeah, instead of evaluating a journalist by looking at over a decade of high-quality work he has done writing about this space, let’s pull up a joke from one article and judge that. Do you realize that you’re the one behaving like a low-quality Redditor here.
    - seanw444 2y ago
      > That doesn't sound like an "excellent journalist". It sounds like a Redditor. We're not talking about their >decade of work. We're talking about this work, and this work sounds like a Redditor.
    - rpmisms 2y ago
      You're arguing from priors. I respect Berger's work, but it doesn't exempt him from acting like a pillock, clearly.
  - 93po 2y ago
    Basically any online article site like ars comes across as a Redditor with reddit-tier takes and a mixture of ChatGPT. If you graduate to something like the NYT then you sound like a lobbyist.
  - abecedarius 2y ago
    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.
- corey_moncure 2y ago
  Ars has been like this ever since Conde Nast bought them. It was a great publication a long time ago.
  - cft 2y ago
    Pure ideological drivel. Anti technology.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      Eric Berger used to be a major standout from them, and has traditionally never delved into the partisan nonsense. I've recommended him, on this account alone, countless times. He was a diamond surrounded by a pile of crap. It's extremely out of character and the writing on this exact topic is somewhat contradicted by other articles he himself wrote on it, like this [1] one. I have a suspicion he's being pressured to increase engagement/subscriptions, and it's trivial to do that in the age of such extreme political derangement. Countdown to Substack. [1] - https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/butch-and-suni-send-mixed-messages-on-whether-politics-delayed-their-return/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/butch-and-suni-send-mi...
      - kenjackson 2y ago
        In the linked article he stated: “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.”
        somenameforme 2y ago
        Read the article I linked above, also written by Eric Berger! Butch confirmed Elon's claim that he made an offer to bring them home last year was accurate. So we know that that offer was made, and must have been rejected. What we don't know is why. But the real thing here is that Eric Berger has written extensively about the political games NASA plays or (depending on one's perspective) is compelled to play. They support a lot of fundamentally flawed programs that are either a complete waste of money or will never go anywhere, like SLS/Artemis. The reason they do this is because, in NASA's case, their funding depends on it and, in the astronauts' case, because they'll never fly again if they don't play ball. So you don't simply take things NASA says at face value - again something he has written about ad nauseum. His understanding of the industry, and the games surrounding it, are part of what made (and hopefully in the future continues to make) him such an excellent reporter. But this latest article just dumps all of that and is written with all the insight and worldview of somebody on /r/politics.
- croes 2y ago
  When Trump said >They got left in space And Musk >They were left up there for political reasons There was the line already crossed, because those statements are untrue and they know. In other words they lied.
- Symmetry 2y ago
  I think the author probably made a mistake in using that subheading. For those familiar with the meme[1] it's saying that this isn't that important but read straight it says the opposite. I'm all for playful subheadings, I love when The Economist uses them, but they shouldn't radically alter the meaning when a big fraction of the audience won't get any particular subtle reference and I think that makes this a failure of writing. [1]https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-sit-on-a-throne-of-lies https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-sit-on-a-throne-of-lies
- bigtones 2y ago
  > He’s very knowledgeable about space topics, has good sources, and has been extremely fair to Musk in the past. None of the writers of Ars Technica are anything like fair to Musk.
  - TaupeRanger 2y ago
    Do you think it's easy to be "fair" to someone who continually spouts misinformation, falsehoods, and retweets or reply-boosts such things on an almost daily basis?
  - glenda 2y ago
    You're right, they're probably not critical enough.
  - pokstad 2y ago
    They were all “fair” to him until he switched politics.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      Musk's donations to political parties is public (leaving aside SuperPAC and other funding being hidden). He has NEVER donated more to the Democrats than the Republicans. Like most billionaires he donates to both parties. Historically, he donates ten times more to the Republicans and the Democrats. Nothing about Musk has ever seemed "liberal". Just convenient. He smokes weed on shows, but if you work for one of his companies you'll be fired if you don't piss clean. Anti-taxes. Anti-regulation/oversight. How has he ever been democrat-leaning in any meaningful way?
  - kergonath 2y ago
    > None of the writers of Ars Technica are anything like fair to Musk. True. For some reason they keep minimising the damage he is doing to both science and democracy.
  - acdha 2y ago
    What is your standard of fairness? This seems eminently fair: Musk lied for political reasons and people who care about that whole objective reality thing are criticizing him for it. He’s arguably the second-most powerful man in the world right now and craves attention like few others, so it seems quite unfair to say he shouldn’t be the subject of public criticism when he certainly doesn’t apply that standard to his own behaviour.
exodust 2y ago
The topic is "crew returns to Earth" not arstechnica's routine political spin. Does arstechnica mention the dolphins even once? Nope. How about Trump? Six times! Meanwhile, sibling comment applauds the writer for his "knowledge of space topics".
- fabian2k 2y ago
  Musk and Trump made this political, not Eric Berger.
  - rdtsc 2y ago
    When was space not political?
    - baxtr 2y ago
      Like when was anything not political?
      - rdtsc 2y ago
        What do you mean by “anything”? The chair I am sitting is not terribly political, for instance.
        ncallaway 2y ago
        I mean, from a certain perspective, it absolutely is. Where was it manufactured? What were the labor laws where it was manufactured? Was there any environmental impact in its construction? How was it shipped to you, and was there any environmental or safety impact of that transportation? If it broke the day after it arrived, would the manufacturer owe you a replacement, or would you have to replace it at your own cost (caveat emptor)? These are all decisions that had to be made, and were largely made collectively through a political process. Your chair likely wasn't constructed with slave labor—which was a political choice. If the chair breaks within minutes of arriving, the manufacturer will likely owe you a replacement through its implicit warranty according to the UCC. So, no, the chair itself doesn't have political opinions. But the chair does have many direct ties to political choices that we've made.
concordDance 2y ago
I've heard rumors that SpaceX suggested another mission to bring them back earlier, but as it would only have been a couple of months earlier NASA very sensibly declined (not worth >100 million to reduce their time in space by a third). Know if there's anything to that? Might explain some of the odd rhetoric.
- fooker 2y ago
  SpaceX offered to do it for free. Publicly.
  - verzali 2y ago
    When? Do you have a link? Because the most recent delay was down to SpaceX. Their new dragon capsule was not ready on time to collect them, so they had to shift and replan for an older one.
  - exe34 2y ago
    "free". Elon Musk offers a lot of things for free, and then turns out you have to pay anyway.
    - flanked-evergl 2y ago
      Like?
      - eitland 2y ago
        First example that comes to mind is Starlinks for Ukraine.
        concordDance 2y ago
        I thought some of those were still free. Do you have information to the contrary? Edit: italicized
        2y ago
davidguetta 2y ago
"Just what those political reasons were never specified. But the basic message was clear: Biden, bad; Trump, good" Bullshit. Musk was clear that the reason was that they didn't want someone pro trump having success so close to the election.
- pell 2y ago
  Musk says a lot of things. Naivety is on display when you accept them without skepticism.
  - davidguetta 2y ago
    i never said what he says is true, just that it was not "never specified"
- kergonath 2y ago
  > Musk was clear that the reason was that they didn't want someone pro trump having success so close to the election. This makes no sense whatsoever. The election was in November. If that was their calculation, they’d just have cosplayed astronaut-saving heroes before Trump had an opportunity to do so, between November and January. Musk is full of it, as usual. It is not the first time some astronauts stay in space longer than expected and it never was controversial before. The people making noise cannot even find a single reason for Biden to do what they accuse him of doing, much less any proof that he did so.
  - fooker 2y ago
    > find a single reason You started this response by explicitly ignoring that reason. > it never was controversial before It was also never the case that the US was launching ~two rockets per week.
  - davidguetta 2y ago
    Tbh i personally thought it was an common sense economic thing: why pay more for SpaceX early return + a direct flight for the other astronaut that were scheduled to work on the ISS, if you can make the ones already there work in the ISS. > This makes no sense whatsoever. The election was in November. If that was their calculation, they’d just have cosplayed astronaut-saving heroes before Trump had an opportunity to do so, between November and January. Musk is full of it, as usual Musk offered to bring them back way before the election so HE would have appeared as the saver (and boeing would have looked terrible). Musk is probably exaggerating, but you can't completely ignore the political forces behind all this.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pie_flavor 2y ago
Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk puff pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces. It's just as grating, and when every other news org is reporting it more measuredly you should be very cautious before calling their summary 'good'. For example, this article claims the political reasons are unspecified, but they were in fact discussed at length (I think Musk even mentioned them on a podcast at the time, though can't remember which one). The choices were whether to leave them up there longer as the next crew rotation, or let them come home and send up another crew like normal. One would save the government the cost of a new Crew Dragon launch (not insignificant - $100m-150m), and the other would save NASA's valuable astronauts from the long term health effects of a year in space (usually crews are rotated every six months for health reasons, like bone density and muscle mass problems). NASA reported that the factor keeping them from being brought home was cost, and they didn't have the $100m for a new Dragon launch in the budget. But this was bunk. The next launch was already budgeted for, because this is on a well-planned-for rotation. It could have been because they wanted to keep the $100m, but if they falsely claimed it wasn't budgeted for, then (as Musk postulated) it's a good bet that the real reason is that this would have been a big PR win for Musk, saving America's cherished astronauts from Boeing's massive screwup, and since he had already begun bankrolling Trump's campaign, Biden did not want him to have this PR win.
- SecretDreams 2y ago
  > Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk puff pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces. When Musk wasn't insane, I think a lot of people valued him a bit more. I personally haven't cared for him since pedo guy, but others did. Reality is he's now batshit crazy, destroying America, and intersecting himself in a bunch of shit nobody wants him close to. Of course that has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. It's not a "shift to the right". I don't care of someone is a bit right or a bit left. This man is dangerous, out there setting America back decades, and sending out some hail Hitlers along the way. Shift right... Come on.
- acdha 2y ago
  I think trying to fit things into a dichotomy of puff/hit pieces is actually obscuring the truth here. Eric Berger is a space flight enthusiast and so he covered SpaceX positively when they were doing good work there, but now that Musk seems to be interested only in playing political games rather than running his companies, there isn’t much positive to report: it’s not a hit piece, just the truth many SpaceX fans didn’t want to hear. It’s not a left/right thing (do you know how Boeing’s CEO votes?) but rather Musk having fully embraced the post-modern world of right-wing politics where there’s no such thing as truth which contradicts what the party wants to be true.
bsdice 2y ago
Just another example of the US government stuffing media and the public and also foreign countries with three outrageous 'things' per day. It's exactly like the quote from a famous movie where Gust Avrakotos says that if you present three scandals in the left hand, you can park an aircraft carrier behind your right hand and nobody will notice. Claiming the astronauts where stranded by the Biden admin is just one of those things for the left hand. Of course had Kate dared call it the Gulf of Mexico, she'd be in serious trouble only an hour later. Defiantly, without a job two hours later once CEO heard from lower management. Something any dictator sooner or later gets into serious trouble, because he is only surrounded by obedient people from his bubble. Warping the view of reality. All others fell out a window or best case, got fired.
davidmurdoch 2y ago
Their opening paragraph immediately attempts to trigger partisan responses. A bit off putting. Then this line: "NASA—not the Biden administration, which all of my reporting indicates was not involved in any decision-making—decided the best and safest option"... NASA is part of the executive branch. So yes, it was the Biden administration. I don't necessarily agree with Musk that the delay was politically motivated, but this article is a political hit piece through and through.
- avmich 2y ago
  Sir, with all due respect - don't you think there could be different meanings for the term "administration"?
  - davidmurdoch 2y ago
    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.
    - davidmurdoch 2y ago
      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?
      - foldr 2y ago
        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.
        davidmurdoch 2y ago
        Well yes, I was suggesting exactly that. I'm pretty sure I'm correct, and that you are too: the president could theoretically do that. Or, in the very least, strongly influence decisions made by NASA. I'm also saying that the NASA _is_ part of President Biden's administration, as the "NASA Administrator" at the time, Bill Nelson, was actually nominated by President Biden. --- But maybe I'm wrong and the downvoters could elaborate as to how and why?
93po 2y ago
Interesting to complain about partisan politics and then write an extremely partisan article
- gustavoamigo 2y ago
  The decision to make this political and partisan came from the Trump administration, the response to that is obviously political and it is natural that it would come from someone that is not a Trump supporter.
- myvoiceismypass 2y ago
  Yes, only the in-group is allowed to be partisan. And break the law with no consequences.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    That DOES seem to be the rule for the right in the USA. Democrats still get kicked out of the club when they do blatant crimes and carry around bags of gold bars.
- cman1444 2y ago
  How would it be possible to critique these partisan comments by Trump and Musk without writing an article like this? What would you have preferred they said?
  - sieabahlpark 2y ago
    [dead]
  - 93po 2y ago
    well for starters, if you're writing for a tech news website, maybe just stick to tech news instead of injecting politics into absolutely every part of our lives. tell me about some new phone or video card and keep the political rants for your twitter.
nailer 2y ago
Sounds like Eric is trying to create a narrative himself - elevating a comment from below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43411627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43411627
peeters 2y ago
> They liked the "Artemis Program" created by the Trump administration well enough that they simply kept it. This cannot be overstated. Prior to Biden there was a long history of new administrations of both parties coming in and wanting to make their mark on NASA. Everyone wanted to be what JFK was to the moon race, which meant that whatever the previous guy came up with obviously had to be canned and replaced, so that the new thing would be their thing. NASA was jerked around for decades. You can't do 15 year projects if they're always cancelled after 8 years. Biden coming in and simply continuing Trump's plan broke the trend. And yet Trump still needed to find a bone to pick to advance his cult of personality.

pavlov 2y ago

Berger is an excellent journalist. He’s very knowledgeable about space topics, has good sources, and has been extremely fair to Musk in the past. When he says it’s a “throne of lies”, a line has been crossed.

chinathrow 2y ago
What line?
- n4r9 2y ago
  Exploiting and lying about the monumental efforts of a pioneering industry for cheap political points certainly feels like a line to me.
  - nodoll 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Eh, the whole space race has its origins in a propaganda war with the USSR staffed by ex-Nazi engineers. It's not more deserving of sacred purity than anything else. On the other hand, the sheer lying about everything is exhaustive and corrosive to the public sphere. (also while dealing with the villain of the week we've forgotten about the previous villain responsible for this situation, Boeing)
    - Y_Y 2y ago
      > Eh, the whole space race has its origins in a propaganda war with the USSR staffed by ex-Nazi engineers. It's not more deserving of sacred purity than anything else. I certainly agree with this, but at the same time I think it's a red herring. So much good tech comes from war, but the nice thing (imho) is that it's "path independent". I'm no more going to scorn the work of Werner von Braun than I would John von Neumann.
      - voidUpdate 2y ago
        I also think that calling von Braun a Nazi isn't necessarily correct. He worked for the Nazi party, but if he didn't it probably wouldn't have worked out very well for him, and I don't think he supported their ideals all that much. He also always wanted to make his rockets, and working at Peenemünde gave him the opportunity to do that, even if it did require PoW labour. Obviously I'm not saying he was a saint, but I don't think he was as "evil" as some people make him out to be, and I don't think many people came out of the war with clean hands. He just really liked making rockets
        somenameforme 2y ago
        I'm not the downvoter here, but somehow this made me think of an old play on the title of a biographical film about him: 'I aim at the stars! But sometimes I hit London...'
        variaga 2y ago
        Don't say that he's hypocritical- say rather that he's apolitical. 'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down - that's not my department' says Werner Von Braun. Some have harsh words for this man of renown. But some think our attitude should be one of gratitude, like the widows and cripples in old London town who owe their large pension to Wernher von Braun Tom Leher, "Werner Von Braun"
        Y_Y 2y ago
        FWIW I didn't mean to make any accusations about von Braun's character. I was taking "ex-Nazi engineer" to mean someone to had been an engineer in the Nazi regime. In fairness though, he was an NSDAP member.
  - porphyra 2y ago
    Let's not forget that right now it seems that only SpaceX is putting in the "monumental efforts" to advance the "pioneeribg industry", being responsible for the vast majority of launches, the only safe crewed spacecraft, as well as pushing the frontier of space travel with ambitious new projects such as Starship.
    - pavlov 2y ago
      Does that justify blatant lies?
      - tim333 2y ago
        I'm worried spacex will end up a bit like Tesla, largely abandoned for Musk to go off on some political weirdness.
        scryers_bloom 2y ago
        Doubt it. Musk only owns something like ~15% of Tesla, and owns about 50% of spacex. He knows tesla is overvalued immensely and wants to deeply integrate himself with government to make sure spacex becomes the de facto space org. for the United States (possibly).
      - trompetenaccoun 2y ago
        What "blatant lies" though? The question hasn't really been answered. The user wrote: >Exploiting and lying about the monumental efforts of a pioneering industry for cheap political points I don't know what this means. When someone tells a blatant lie, it would be easy to quote them for a start. What 'monumental effort' was lied about? If it's about Boeing then I have to say I too think the company is doing a terrible job and if anyone is lying about the effort it's them, there have been numerous whistleblowers who came out and talked about the coverups at Boeing.
        n4r9 2y ago
        I didn't personally use the word "blatant", but when I said "lying" I was referring to claims that: * The Biden administration either forgot about or deliberately chose to leave astronauts in space for political reasons. * Trump's request accelerated the decision to bring the astronauts home. "Monumental efforts" was a more general comment about the space industry, including the activities of both NASA and SpaceX. Bringing astronauts home from space when equipment has gone faulty is a challenge I do not envy whatsoever. For Trump to claim credit in the venture is bordering on obscene.
SLWW 2y ago
[flagged]
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  You're effectively tone policing an article for not being kind enough to the current administration that is lying their ass off about everything they do every step of the way.
  - dapf 2y ago
    [dead]
  - SLWW 2y ago
    I'm not tone policing, I'm saying he sounds condescending like the rest of these types of articles... making it sound like noise, adding to the static. I didn't say he was wrong in what he was saying, I'm just seeing this as an outsider who immediately gets a sour taste in my mouth. Tone policing is an ad hominem argument focusing on the tone and not the merit to DISCREDIT the information within, i am not intending to discredit him, i don't dispute his factual claims, just noting that he made it harder to see his side of things from my perspective.
- pveierland 2y ago
  Berger is not a "one note journalist". He literally wrote the book "Liftoff" which is great telling of the story of SpaceX, and has covered space topics in extensive detail for a long time. The article is important because the narrative told by the administration is clearly not true and in bad faith, and it is right to call it out.
  - MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
    My impression is that Berger is well meaning, but out of his element. By asking "Can space remain nonpartisan?", as if any government agency was even remotely non-partisan to begin with, or as if that was even a theoretical possibility, betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how government functions.
someperson 2y ago
Just noting 'throne of lies' is a subheading and not in the body of the article. I don't know how Ars Technica does things, but in some news outlets a separate editor have control over titles and subheading rather than the author of the article.
- creesch 2y ago
  I mean, if you read the rest of the article the subheading fits. So, it doesn't really change the message.
- ta1243 2y ago
  Maybe, but he did write > And still, the lies came.
- pavon 2y ago
  IIRC Ars has stated that the story author is the ones that writes the headers/subheaders, but they write multiple and A/B testing picks the one to show.
bheadmaster 2y ago
I wasn't very convinced by his arguments - the main one being: Senior NASA officials earlier this month confirmed, publicly and on the record, that the decision was made by the space agency in the best interests of the International Space Station Program. Not for political reasons. To be a little snarky here - so Senior NASA officials: honest, Musk: liar? If, hypothetically, NASA was pressured for political reasons, I don't think Senior NASA officials would reveal it to the public anyway. So the fact that they said it's not for political reasons doesn't really prove anything for either side of the argument.
- hoseja 2y ago
  NASA, the pork factory, not impartial? Impossible!
- Denote6737 2y ago
  What about all the other things. For example the crew dragon was docked back in september waiting for return. The last administration could have called for return at any point before the inaguration to claim glory, but didn't because they aren't hacks.
  - bheadmaster 2y ago
    What do you mean? The fact that they didn't return the astronauts implies the last administration's integrity?
    - walls 2y ago
      Yes, it shows they weren't manipulating NASA for political points.
      - bheadmaster 2y ago
        That does not make sense. Did they care more about "not manipulating NASA for political points" than about astronauts who were stuck in space for 9 months, with all the harmful effects that it entails?
kypro 2y ago
Firstly, I understand people will disagree with me on this and that's fine – if you disagree please just explain why. Based on what I've read on this, I can see why Trump and Elon MIGHT feel like the return flight was held back for political reasons... But I'm not really able to take either side of this argument as it stands, so I'll give my thoughts for why that is in the hope someone might be able to convince me one way or the other... Firstly, the assumption that NASA is apolitical should be questioned. This might just be my ignorance, but I still haven't seen any good reasoning for why NASA would delay the return flight. As others have noted the capsule was already there, but NASA seemingly just decided to randomly keep them up there months longer than necessary? Why? And while it's not fair to blame the Biden administration for this directly, ultimately the actions of any government agency would be the responsibility of the current administration to some extent, so if there was any suspicion that the return flight was being pushed back for political reasons the Biden administration should have intervened. I imagine if Elon did push for an earlier return and was denied this without a good reason he might have questioned why, and I could imagine someone in that position might assume a political motive – perhaps reasonably depending on those private conversations had. I also think there's an argument to be made that if the Biden administration was friendlier with Elon and didn't go out of their way to alienate him that this return flight would have happened earlier too. Perhaps because Elon could have spoke to Biden directly as he did with Trump, or because NASA would have changed their calculation on the PR of the return. I have tried repeatedly to find a reason why the return flight might have been delayed, but haven't been able to find any good reason for this so I'm on the fence about why this might have happened. If someone can give me a reasonable explanation for why they weren't returned earlier (especially if it's a reason Elon would have been aware of) I'd likely conclude Elon is most likely lying. Either way the argument, "Elon is wrong because the capsule was up there the whole time so they could have been brought back whenever, but NASA just decided to push it back" is not a convincing explanation that there was no political calculation here.
- echoangle 2y ago
  The normal process is that you always have at least one US and one Russian Vehicle docked to the ISS. In emergencies, each crewmember uses their spacecraft to return to earth. The normal rotation is that an additional spacecraft arrives at the ISS (so there are now 3 vehicles docked in total) and then the older spacecraft leaves with its crew. So before the single dragon leaves, a new dragon would arrive. I think the general idea is to always have at least some Russians and Americans on the ISS at all times (although they are doing swapped missions now so even having only one vehicle left would ensure that most of the time) and to always have crew on the ISS, even if one vehicle needs to return early due to technical problems.
weberer 2y ago
>"We're going to stand by for splashdown located in the Gulf of America," she said. >Ah, yes. The Gulf of America. >This is why we can't have nice things. That doesn't sound like an "excellent journalist". It sounds like a Redditor.
- Gareth321 2y ago
  I cringed reading that. It's like something an edgy West coast teenage Redditor would write.
- pavlov 2y ago
  Yeah, instead of evaluating a journalist by looking at over a decade of high-quality work he has done writing about this space, let’s pull up a joke from one article and judge that. Do you realize that you’re the one behaving like a low-quality Redditor here.
  - seanw444 2y ago
    > That doesn't sound like an "excellent journalist". It sounds like a Redditor. We're not talking about their >decade of work. We're talking about this work, and this work sounds like a Redditor.
  - rpmisms 2y ago
    You're arguing from priors. I respect Berger's work, but it doesn't exempt him from acting like a pillock, clearly.
- 93po 2y ago
  Basically any online article site like ars comes across as a Redditor with reddit-tier takes and a mixture of ChatGPT. If you graduate to something like the NYT then you sound like a lobbyist.
- abecedarius 2y ago
  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.
corey_moncure 2y ago
Ars has been like this ever since Conde Nast bought them. It was a great publication a long time ago.
- cft 2y ago
  Pure ideological drivel. Anti technology.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    Eric Berger used to be a major standout from them, and has traditionally never delved into the partisan nonsense. I've recommended him, on this account alone, countless times. He was a diamond surrounded by a pile of crap. It's extremely out of character and the writing on this exact topic is somewhat contradicted by other articles he himself wrote on it, like this [1] one. I have a suspicion he's being pressured to increase engagement/subscriptions, and it's trivial to do that in the age of such extreme political derangement. Countdown to Substack. [1] - https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/butch-and-suni-send-mixed-messages-on-whether-politics-delayed-their-return/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/butch-and-suni-send-mi...
    - kenjackson 2y ago
      In the linked article he stated: “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.”
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        Read the article I linked above, also written by Eric Berger! Butch confirmed Elon's claim that he made an offer to bring them home last year was accurate. So we know that that offer was made, and must have been rejected. What we don't know is why. But the real thing here is that Eric Berger has written extensively about the political games NASA plays or (depending on one's perspective) is compelled to play. They support a lot of fundamentally flawed programs that are either a complete waste of money or will never go anywhere, like SLS/Artemis. The reason they do this is because, in NASA's case, their funding depends on it and, in the astronauts' case, because they'll never fly again if they don't play ball. So you don't simply take things NASA says at face value - again something he has written about ad nauseum. His understanding of the industry, and the games surrounding it, are part of what made (and hopefully in the future continues to make) him such an excellent reporter. But this latest article just dumps all of that and is written with all the insight and worldview of somebody on /r/politics.
croes 2y ago
When Trump said >They got left in space And Musk >They were left up there for political reasons There was the line already crossed, because those statements are untrue and they know. In other words they lied.
Symmetry 2y ago
I think the author probably made a mistake in using that subheading. For those familiar with the meme[1] it's saying that this isn't that important but read straight it says the opposite. I'm all for playful subheadings, I love when The Economist uses them, but they shouldn't radically alter the meaning when a big fraction of the audience won't get any particular subtle reference and I think that makes this a failure of writing. [1]https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-sit-on-a-throne-of-lies https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-sit-on-a-throne-of-lies
bigtones 2y ago
> He’s very knowledgeable about space topics, has good sources, and has been extremely fair to Musk in the past. None of the writers of Ars Technica are anything like fair to Musk.
- TaupeRanger 2y ago
  Do you think it's easy to be "fair" to someone who continually spouts misinformation, falsehoods, and retweets or reply-boosts such things on an almost daily basis?
- glenda 2y ago
  You're right, they're probably not critical enough.
- pokstad 2y ago
  They were all “fair” to him until he switched politics.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    Musk's donations to political parties is public (leaving aside SuperPAC and other funding being hidden). He has NEVER donated more to the Democrats than the Republicans. Like most billionaires he donates to both parties. Historically, he donates ten times more to the Republicans and the Democrats. Nothing about Musk has ever seemed "liberal". Just convenient. He smokes weed on shows, but if you work for one of his companies you'll be fired if you don't piss clean. Anti-taxes. Anti-regulation/oversight. How has he ever been democrat-leaning in any meaningful way?
- kergonath 2y ago
  > None of the writers of Ars Technica are anything like fair to Musk. True. For some reason they keep minimising the damage he is doing to both science and democracy.
- acdha 2y ago
  What is your standard of fairness? This seems eminently fair: Musk lied for political reasons and people who care about that whole objective reality thing are criticizing him for it. He’s arguably the second-most powerful man in the world right now and craves attention like few others, so it seems quite unfair to say he shouldn’t be the subject of public criticism when he certainly doesn’t apply that standard to his own behaviour.

exodust 2y ago

The topic is "crew returns to Earth" not arstechnica's routine political spin. Does arstechnica mention the dolphins even once? Nope. How about Trump? Six times! Meanwhile, sibling comment applauds the writer for his "knowledge of space topics".

fabian2k 2y ago
Musk and Trump made this political, not Eric Berger.
- rdtsc 2y ago
  When was space not political?
  - baxtr 2y ago
    Like when was anything not political?
    - rdtsc 2y ago
      What do you mean by “anything”? The chair I am sitting is not terribly political, for instance.
      - ncallaway 2y ago
        I mean, from a certain perspective, it absolutely is. Where was it manufactured? What were the labor laws where it was manufactured? Was there any environmental impact in its construction? How was it shipped to you, and was there any environmental or safety impact of that transportation? If it broke the day after it arrived, would the manufacturer owe you a replacement, or would you have to replace it at your own cost (caveat emptor)? These are all decisions that had to be made, and were largely made collectively through a political process. Your chair likely wasn't constructed with slave labor—which was a political choice. If the chair breaks within minutes of arriving, the manufacturer will likely owe you a replacement through its implicit warranty according to the UCC. So, no, the chair itself doesn't have political opinions. But the chair does have many direct ties to political choices that we've made.

concordDance 2y ago

I've heard rumors that SpaceX suggested another mission to bring them back earlier, but as it would only have been a couple of months earlier NASA very sensibly declined (not worth >100 million to reduce their time in space by a third). Know if there's anything to that? Might explain some of the odd rhetoric.

fooker 2y ago
SpaceX offered to do it for free. Publicly.
- verzali 2y ago
  When? Do you have a link? Because the most recent delay was down to SpaceX. Their new dragon capsule was not ready on time to collect them, so they had to shift and replan for an older one.
- exe34 2y ago
  "free". Elon Musk offers a lot of things for free, and then turns out you have to pay anyway.
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    Like?
    - eitland 2y ago
      First example that comes to mind is Starlinks for Ukraine.
      - concordDance 2y ago
        I thought some of those were still free. Do you have information to the contrary? Edit: italicized
        2y ago

davidguetta 2y ago

"Just what those political reasons were never specified. But the basic message was clear: Biden, bad; Trump, good" Bullshit. Musk was clear that the reason was that they didn't want someone pro trump having success so close to the election.

pell 2y ago
Musk says a lot of things. Naivety is on display when you accept them without skepticism.
- davidguetta 2y ago
  i never said what he says is true, just that it was not "never specified"
kergonath 2y ago
> Musk was clear that the reason was that they didn't want someone pro trump having success so close to the election. This makes no sense whatsoever. The election was in November. If that was their calculation, they’d just have cosplayed astronaut-saving heroes before Trump had an opportunity to do so, between November and January. Musk is full of it, as usual. It is not the first time some astronauts stay in space longer than expected and it never was controversial before. The people making noise cannot even find a single reason for Biden to do what they accuse him of doing, much less any proof that he did so.
- fooker 2y ago
  > find a single reason You started this response by explicitly ignoring that reason. > it never was controversial before It was also never the case that the US was launching ~two rockets per week.
- davidguetta 2y ago
  Tbh i personally thought it was an common sense economic thing: why pay more for SpaceX early return + a direct flight for the other astronaut that were scheduled to work on the ISS, if you can make the ones already there work in the ISS. > This makes no sense whatsoever. The election was in November. If that was their calculation, they’d just have cosplayed astronaut-saving heroes before Trump had an opportunity to do so, between November and January. Musk is full of it, as usual Musk offered to bring them back way before the election so HE would have appeared as the saver (and boeing would have looked terrible). Musk is probably exaggerating, but you can't completely ignore the political forces behind all this.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

pie_flavor 2y ago

Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk puff pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces. It's just as grating, and when every other news org is reporting it more measuredly you should be very cautious before calling their summary 'good'. For example, this article claims the political reasons are unspecified, but they were in fact discussed at length (I think Musk even mentioned them on a podcast at the time, though can't remember which one). The choices were whether to leave them up there longer as the next crew rotation, or let them come home and send up another crew like normal. One would save the government the cost of a new Crew Dragon launch (not insignificant - $100m-150m), and the other would save NASA's valuable astronauts from the long term health effects of a year in space (usually crews are rotated every six months for health reasons, like bone density and muscle mass problems). NASA reported that the factor keeping them from being brought home was cost, and they didn't have the $100m for a new Dragon launch in the budget. But this was bunk. The next launch was already budgeted for, because this is on a well-planned-for rotation. It could have been because they wanted to keep the $100m, but if they falsely claimed it wasn't budgeted for, then (as Musk postulated) it's a good bet that the real reason is that this would have been a big PR win for Musk, saving America's cherished astronauts from Boeing's massive screwup, and since he had already begun bankrolling Trump's campaign, Biden did not want him to have this PR win.

SecretDreams 2y ago
> Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk puff pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces. When Musk wasn't insane, I think a lot of people valued him a bit more. I personally haven't cared for him since pedo guy, but others did. Reality is he's now batshit crazy, destroying America, and intersecting himself in a bunch of shit nobody wants him close to. Of course that has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. It's not a "shift to the right". I don't care of someone is a bit right or a bit left. This man is dangerous, out there setting America back decades, and sending out some hail Hitlers along the way. Shift right... Come on.
acdha 2y ago
I think trying to fit things into a dichotomy of puff/hit pieces is actually obscuring the truth here. Eric Berger is a space flight enthusiast and so he covered SpaceX positively when they were doing good work there, but now that Musk seems to be interested only in playing political games rather than running his companies, there isn’t much positive to report: it’s not a hit piece, just the truth many SpaceX fans didn’t want to hear. It’s not a left/right thing (do you know how Boeing’s CEO votes?) but rather Musk having fully embraced the post-modern world of right-wing politics where there’s no such thing as truth which contradicts what the party wants to be true.

bsdice 2y ago

Just another example of the US government stuffing media and the public and also foreign countries with three outrageous 'things' per day. It's exactly like the quote from a famous movie where Gust Avrakotos says that if you present three scandals in the left hand, you can park an aircraft carrier behind your right hand and nobody will notice. Claiming the astronauts where stranded by the Biden admin is just one of those things for the left hand. Of course had Kate dared call it the Gulf of Mexico, she'd be in serious trouble only an hour later. Defiantly, without a job two hours later once CEO heard from lower management. Something any dictator sooner or later gets into serious trouble, because he is only surrounded by obedient people from his bubble. Warping the view of reality. All others fell out a window or best case, got fired.

davidmurdoch 2y ago

Their opening paragraph immediately attempts to trigger partisan responses. A bit off putting. Then this line: "NASA—not the Biden administration, which all of my reporting indicates was not involved in any decision-making—decided the best and safest option"... NASA is part of the executive branch. So yes, it was the Biden administration. I don't necessarily agree with Musk that the delay was politically motivated, but this article is a political hit piece through and through.

avmich 2y ago
Sir, with all due respect - don't you think there could be different meanings for the term "administration"?
- davidmurdoch 2y ago
  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.
  - davidmurdoch 2y ago
    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?
    - foldr 2y ago
      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.
      - davidmurdoch 2y ago
        Well yes, I was suggesting exactly that. I'm pretty sure I'm correct, and that you are too: the president could theoretically do that. Or, in the very least, strongly influence decisions made by NASA. I'm also saying that the NASA _is_ part of President Biden's administration, as the "NASA Administrator" at the time, Bill Nelson, was actually nominated by President Biden. --- But maybe I'm wrong and the downvoters could elaborate as to how and why?

93po 2y ago

Interesting to complain about partisan politics and then write an extremely partisan article

gustavoamigo 2y ago
The decision to make this political and partisan came from the Trump administration, the response to that is obviously political and it is natural that it would come from someone that is not a Trump supporter.
myvoiceismypass 2y ago
Yes, only the in-group is allowed to be partisan. And break the law with no consequences.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  That DOES seem to be the rule for the right in the USA. Democrats still get kicked out of the club when they do blatant crimes and carry around bags of gold bars.
cman1444 2y ago
How would it be possible to critique these partisan comments by Trump and Musk without writing an article like this? What would you have preferred they said?
- sieabahlpark 2y ago
  [dead]
- 93po 2y ago
  well for starters, if you're writing for a tech news website, maybe just stick to tech news instead of injecting politics into absolutely every part of our lives. tell me about some new phone or video card and keep the political rants for your twitter.

nailer 2y ago

Sounds like Eric is trying to create a narrative himself - elevating a comment from below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43411627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43411627

peeters 2y ago

> They liked the "Artemis Program" created by the Trump administration well enough that they simply kept it. This cannot be overstated. Prior to Biden there was a long history of new administrations of both parties coming in and wanting to make their mark on NASA. Everyone wanted to be what JFK was to the moon race, which meant that whatever the previous guy came up with obviously had to be canned and replaced, so that the new thing would be their thing. NASA was jerked around for decades. You can't do 15 year projects if they're always cancelled after 8 years. Biden coming in and simply continuing Trump's plan broke the trend. And yet Trump still needed to find a bone to pick to advance his cult of personality.