5 ms·
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 dec
by 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 agoNASA, the pork factory, not impartial? Impossible!
- Denote6737 2y agoWhat 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 agoWhat do you mean? The fact that they didn't return the astronauts implies the last administration's integrity?
- walls 2y agoYes, it shows they weren't manipulating NASA for political points.
- bheadmaster 2y agoThat 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?
- bigmattystyles 2y agoTo be fair, death from re-entry is pretty bad for your health as well.
- porphyra 2y agoWhy didn't they do it for the health of the astronauts? What would make doing so "hacks"?
- echoangle 2y agoWhy would you do it for the health? Their stays weren’t extremely long compared to other ISS expeditions.
- erupt7893 2y agoStandard rotations are about 6 months - Butch and Suni were supposed to be up there for 8 days... Their families, their lives, and everything normal for way longer than planned. Health routines or not, that’s a brutal toll—mentally, emotionally, not just bones and muscles. Stop downplaying it like it’s no big deal
- troupo 2y agoAll you said are literally in the descriptions of the jobs they signed up for. They literally train for multiple gruesome death scenarios as part of their training. Not just "well, your 8-day stay has now become several months"
- bheadmaster 2y agoJust because they signed up for it, doesn't mean we shouldn't try our best to prevent it. Staying for 9 months in space is not a small deal for people's health.
- troupo 2y agoSo NASA did indeed try to prevent it, and weighed it against a multitude of other considerations, and actual experts running actual missions have explicitly and patiently explained the what, the how, and the why.
- 2y ago
- cryptonector 2y agoHaving a docked ship is not enough. There must be a docked ship on station at all times for evacuations. The thing that was needed was another ship to take some people back and not everyone (well, all but any Russians, since they have their own ships).
- echoangle 2y agoWrong, they could have packed all 4 astronauts (the 2 that came to the ISS on the dragon and Suni and Butch) into the docked dragon and returned at any point. They only waited for the next dragon (crew 10) so that not only the 3 people using the Soyuz would be left on the ISS. But this would have absolutely been possible. The remaining crew would have used their Soyuz in emergencies anyways, they don’t need the dragon.
- somenameforme 2y agoThere's way more than just them. Thanks to all the delays the 4-man SpaceX Crew-8 [1] stayed on the ISS until October 23rd, becoming the longest Dragon stay ever. And the 3-man crew from Soyuz MS-26 got there on September 11th, and is still there. In fact reading the Soyuz MS-26 Wiki, one of the many records this whole debacle ended up breaking is that when the MS-26 entered into space, there were more humans in space than ever before, with a total of 19! [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-8 [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_MS-26 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_MS-26
- echoangle 2y agoDid you read my comment? Currently, there is one Dragon and one Soyuz docked to the ISS. If Crew-9 had left earlier, before the Crew-10 Dragon had arrived, there would have been only the Soyuz left.
- bigmattystyles 2y agoDo the Soyuz still touch down in a desert in a place like Kazakhstan or do they touch down on water nowadays? The desert solid ground touch downs seem so brutal.
- wat10000 2y agoI can’t believe anyone took these claims seriously for even a moment. Musk was a bullshitter even at his best, and he has fallen far from that peak in the past couple of years. Just go to his Twitter feed and see an unending stream of absolute nonsense. Trump shows no indication that he even understands the concept of truth. And yet somehow people manage to say, “NASA says X, Musk and Trump say Y, who knows who’s right?”
- bheadmaster 2y agoIn a situation where everyone has an incentive to lie, there's no reason to believe anyone. Musk and Trump have a history of exaggarating, to say it lightly, but NASA, like most of the government entities, hasn't been transparent with their internal processes either. I see no reason to trust either of them.
- wat10000 2y agoI don’t see much incentive for NASA to lie. Or rather, the incentive goes the other way. The “who cares about the truth” approach would be to curry favor with the new administration by agreeing with their claims. There’s also a world of difference between “not transparent” and the Musk/Trump approach to the truth where you’re more likely to be correct if you just assume everything they say is false.
- travisgriggs 2y agoYes. Kind of. Imagine you have two friends. Both are known to be the kind of people who eat off of other people’s plates. You go to dinner with both of them. And while you’re distracted, some food fries disappear from your plate. At this point, it’s similar. Since both friends steal food, it could be either. Except, you’ve actually been to dinner many times with both. And you actually know a little more. You know that friend A always takes some of your fries. And friend B has always preferred snatching the croutons from your salad. But right now, you’ve got some missing fries. So… most likely the fry snatcher is at it again. Coming back to the real world of liars. We’ve observed that trump and and musk stretch the truth to gain the trust/confidence/adoration of others. Braggart style behavior. NASA is less than transparent when it comes to motives behind various pork barrel things. But when it comes to “why’d something not work” they actually have a record of being mind numbing thorough and verbose. So I personally have no problem pinning the less than desirable behavior around this on Trump and Musk.
- alistairSH 2y agoAre you only reading every third sentence? The return vessel was docked in September. The return was always planned to be around today, not in September. Trump and Musk are lying about the astronauts being forgotten. They're lying when they claim Biden abandoned them. As far as I can tell, NASA didn't delay for political reasons. Nor did they allow the return journey today for political reasons. This was the plan all along (well, once the initial plans had to be scrapped for technical reasons).
- queuebert 2y agoIf that's true, why did the astronauts confirm Musk's version of the story in an interview? Genuinely asking ...
- throwway120385 2y agoWhat interview? Can you link it?
- mjrpes 2y agoProbably cherry picking their c-span interview on March 4: > Asked about the claims of political motivations for their extended stay, Wilmore said that Musk and Trump may have information “that we are not privy to.” But then he says: > But, he said, “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.” The fact check article is pretty comprehensive: https://www.factcheck.org/2025/03/the-facts-behind-the-delayed-return-of-u-s-astronauts/ https://www.factcheck.org/2025/03/the-facts-behind-the-delay...
- queuebert 2y agohttps://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1897470032612851893 https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1897470032612851893 (Note: I don't know anything about the X account. It was just the first result I found.) Edit: Also it sucks that I can't ask a genuine question on this website without getting downvoted to oblivion. Whatever the answer, it would be nice to get it without being judged.
- croes 2y agoDidn’t know that the accused must prove their innocence? Where did Musk show his proof it was political? Given how often Musk and Trump tell BS, bend the truth and even lie I tend to believe NASA officials
- MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago> Didn’t know that the accused must prove their innocence? I thought this was sarcasm when I first read it.
- troupo 2y ago> To be a little snarky here - so Senior NASA officials: honest, Musk: liar? We know for a fact that Musk a serial liar with a very tenuous grasp of truth. Can you say the same about the Senior NASA official? Also, the burden of proof lies on Musk, not on NASA which literally has contingencies upon contingencies for such situations.
- somenameforme 2y agoNASA in practice isn't what most people think it is. A lot of stuff they're doing is just a mixture of a terrible idea (SLS) and will never go anywhere (Artemis), amongst others. People in-the-know in space are fully aware of this, including NASA officials. But they keep cheerleading it all and pretending that everything will just be awesome. The reason is that NASA is basically forced to be political (at least their heads seem to feel that way), or their funding will get cut. And this also trickles all the way down to the astronauts who play politics for the sake of being able to keep flying. It's become a highly dysfunctional organization, so yeah - "Senior NASA official" is certainly not a reliable source on anything remotely related to politics, and this is hard in that domain.
- Rooster61 2y agoI don't know if I'd call the SLS a terrible idea. It's been a FANTASTIC way to enrich lawmakers, a true masterstroke in pork barrel spending.
- troupo 2y agoAnd how does that relate to this particular issue? Had they been playing political games for the sake of funding, they would've immediately jumped as soon as Musk and Trump barked, right? Instead they carefully and patiently explained all the issues, and what is going on. And yet, still, "ah yes, it's NASA that is lying for political clout, not the very public very shameless very serial liars"
- Blackcatmaxy 2y agoBlaming NASA for SLS is something I keep seeing but isn't it entirely congressional pork barrel politics that makes the SLS what it is? What degree of control does NASA itself have to force a project of that scale not to devolve into such a mess despite congressional corruption?
- GolfPopper 2y agoNASA announced last August that the Starliner crew would return on SpaceX Crew-9 in Feb 2025.[1] This was discussed on Hacker News at the time.[2] Crew-9 was launched in September 2024.[3] Crew-9's return was delayed waiting for the launch of Crew-10, originally scheduled for Feb 2025, but pushed back to March. [4] Anyone repeating the claim that Trump and/or Musk "decided" to return the Starliner crew is spreading lies, deliberately or unwittingly. 1. https://nitter.net/NASA/status/1827393397939634503 https://nitter.net/NASA/status/1827393397939634503 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41339667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41339667 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-9 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-10
- pavon 2y agoAn earlier article[1] goes into more detail about how the decision was actually made, which provides more perspective about truth vs narrative. It is much more interesting than the one linked by the GP. [1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/nasa-officials-undermine-musks-claims-about-stranded-astronauts/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/nasa-officials-undermi...
- kybernetikos 2y agoI'm confused by this. You can just go and look. Hacker News comment from 6 months ago, you know, during the Biden administration. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41339804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41339804: - They'll reconfigure Crew-8 for 6 occupants for contingency evac between Starliner undock and Crew-9 arrival. - Starliner leaving ISS autonomously early September - Crew 9 launching no later than Sept 24th with 2 crew + 2 empty seats - Crew 9 coming back down in ~Feb 2025 The advent of Trump and Musk into government seems not to have changed that plan one whit, which makes absolutely no sense if they're telling the truth.