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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
by 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 agoI 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.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y agoFundamentally, it's the "reality has a liberal bias" problem. Accurate reporting is interpreted as a political act because it disagrees with the "alternative facts" being presented by the right wing.
- fooker 2y agoYes, reality does have a liberal bias. If you can write a one sentence definition of liberalism, and examine policies from first principles, you might be surprised.
- MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago> Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk puff pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces. You have to go a long way back to find Ars articles on Musk that aren't derogatory. They were ahead of the curve on this, apart from their rocket articles (usually). I've always found it unprofessional and off-putting.