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NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
- panick21 1y agoThis is all just politics. Artemis from the beginning was just politics. And it wasn't driven by how to best do things, or any kind of coherent strategy. Its basically was a compromise, that had one of its pillars, that SLS and Orion need to continue to be used. Those two project have spend decades getting untold amounts of money. And even after all that money, their development isn't finished and they would need more money. Then with the very, very little money left over, NASA tried to precure a moon lander. It was basically no money at all. SpaceX won this competition, because SpaceX was willing to do things for an absurdly cheap price. Mostly because they are already investming themselves into the project. And their own investment was significantly larger then what NASA paid them. Only after BlueOrigin lost, did they start a massive lobby campaign to figure out how to get more money out of congress so they could fund another lander. But both landers, SpaceX and BlueOrigin, do not receive enough money to cover their cost. Not even close. So basically the US is relaying on massive companies in SpaceX case, and simply the private money of Bezos in BlueOrigins case to sponsor a moon program for them. Because all NASA money is going into legacy contracts that have very bad return on invesmtent. The political move to now blame SpaceX for being late is just an excuse so that the overall project doesn't have to be reevaluated. The reality is, SpaceX is likely not the only reason for a delay. The suits are unlikley to be ready anyway. And even if Artemis III goes off, the SLS Block 2 is behind as well and will cost many additional billions. And threating SpaceX with paying some legacy company to do a cost-plus lander isn't going to do anything, its just a fantasy thread, or at best the deamnd by some in congress to push even more money into legacy companies. Its not going to fix Artemis III or anything. Its funny how delays in cost-plus contract always lead to simply more money and more political support. Almost as if there was some other motives behind the decition when delays are unacceptable and when they are. The reality of all of this is that NASA is completely mismanaged and fundamentally set up incorrectly. And just making big political waves on blaming whoever is politically out of favor will never actually work. The only reason SpaceX and the New Space economy exist is because clever teams inside of NASA and in Obamas team managed to sneak a few good programs, Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew past congress. Without those people, the US would already be far behind in terms of space. The question the US (Congress/NASA) should be asking is not 'how can we get Artemis III' but rather 'what kind of Space program do we want over the next 30 years'. The US has an incredible space industry, and more private investment then everybody combinaed. There is no question that the US and NASA could be far, far beyond everbody else, and achieve amazing thigns, but Congress and NASA fundamentally misguided approch is holding it back. So please, stop talking about Artemis III and start asking some more fundmanetal questions.
- mullingitover 1y ago> The question the US (Congress/NASA) should be asking is not 'how can we get Artemis III' but rather 'what kind of Space program do we want over the next 30 years'. I think the big question is "What is it going to do to the global standing of the United States (let alone domestic politics) when China repeatedly lands people on the moon and we can't."
- panick21 1y agoNot really, its only the big question if US makes it the question. If the US just says yeah we done that, that's not our focus. And then China does maybe a flags and footprints landing, while shortly after the US has a base there. The only reason this is even close at all is because the US spend the last 25 years and 200 billion $ in complete deadends. And just going further into the deadend just to maybe get a set of footprints onto the moon first is shortsighted and frankly morinic strategy.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y agoAbout damn time!
- philipwhiuk 1y agoWho do you think is capable of competing, given that they didn't win the bid the first time round?
- daveguy 1y ago[flagged]
- roer 1y agoIs this about getting to the moon quickly or is it about doing it with the help of a different rocket company?
- madaxe_again 1y agoThey should just get an Apollo lander, maybe strap on some rockets from Nike Ajax missiles, buff it up a bit, maybe throw a shuttle windscreen on it too. Job done.
- philipwhiuk 1y agoToo bad Orion can't get to Lunar Orbit to meet the lander.
- imtringued 1y agoAll hail the cislunar transporter.
- bombcar 1y agoI don't really care, give Carmack ten billion dollars and at least it'll run DooM.
- bhouston 1y agoIs this realistic? Doesn't the development timelines for a new large rocket stretch into more than a decade? Unless someone else had one under development... Could this just be a pressure tactic on SpaceX?
- rsynnott 1y agoAs mentioned in the article (of course I realise we mustn't read those here) Blue Origin is supposed to be providing a lander in 2030 in any case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_V), so doesn't seem like a _huge_ stretch. Somewhat surprised they've waited this long, under the circumstances.
- chasd00 1y agoI was about to post that Blue Origin is the only possible candidate for a competitor to SpaceX and they're not even close. More competition is needed but it's like saying more competition is needed for the hyperscalers, going from zero to on par is very hard and even with the time and money you still need the talent.
- madaxe_again 1y agoThis contract isn’t for launch - that will be SLS (in theory) - rather for the lander.
- loourr 1y agoWhich highlights how unserious this whole thing is. SLS hardly works and is way behind schedule.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ACCount37 1y agoBlue Origin is explicitly named in Duffy's statement. And if SpaceX's Starship HLS catches enough delays, they can slide into Blue Origin's Blue Moon HLS timeline - which is now being developed for Artemis 5, in 2030. On top of working on a HLS lander, Blue Origin has a pretty large rocket developed already - New Glenn. They just don't have the reusability or the launch cadence, and their HLS needs at least two launches. So far, New Glenn has only ever flown once, with the first stage recovery attempt being unsuccessful. But they may get it into a good shape in time. I do think that Artemis 3, currently stated for 2027, will be eventually delayed to ~2030, for many reasons. But I wouldn't trust Blue Origin to deliver before SpaceX even if they started the development at the same exact time, and they didn't. SpaceX is, by aerospace standards, a lean and mean company. SpaceX sets unhinged hyper-aggressive "if we lived in a perfect world" timelines, and delivers late. Blue Origin sets reasonable aerospace timelines, and still delivers late. Blue Moon HLS is considerably less complex than Starship HLS, but it has a lot of the same milestones in front of it - including in-orbit propellant storage and fuel transfers from one vehicle to another. And currently, they certainly don't seem to be ahead of where SpaceX is now with Starship. Other than Blue Origin and SpaceX? I just don't see anyone being able to squeeze out a HLS candndate in time for 2030. Who else is there in the space, with anywhere near the expertise? Firefly? Boeing?
- reactordev 1y agoPosture, no one can compete, not even NASA.
- raverbashing 1y agoYeah who is going to deliver faster and more reliable than SpaceX? Boeing? LM? Doubt
- ekjhgkejhgk 1y agoNot sure if you're being sarcastic. Have they managed to get starship to orbit yet?
- delichon 1y ago> Not sure if you're being sarcastic. Have they managed to get to orbit anything bigger than a banana? Yes, about 4,000 metric tons. My IP packets are traveling through part of it now.
- ekjhgkejhgk 1y agoOn starship?
- delichon 1y agoYou said "they". They are SpaceX. Their expertise is transferable to Starship.
- ekjhgkejhgk 1y agoClearly not, because they've launched about 10 Starships and have failed to achieve orbit.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- cheschire 1y agoI love how government acquisitions works. A company can fail to deliver the final product, then use the recompete process to win a higher paying contract by using the progress they already made on the previous contract to demonstrate a performance level above their competitors. Whereas all the competition has to use their own R&D budget to show capability to meet the requirements of the second contract, the winner of the first contract used the government's R&D money to be competitive.
- FrustratedMonky 1y agoEveryone hates on the Government. But that describes every competitive bid process used by many corporations. Any company can do that to another company. Welcome to Capitalism. Just because it is a government contract doesn't by default mean it is Socialism. And, of course they can re-bid. Just like every other corporation does.
- cheschire 1y agoI didn't imply socialism. It's probably my fault you inferred it though as I'm blissfully ignorant of whatever the current echoes are these days that get people chirping in a specific direction. No I'm just assuming SpaceX will win the recompetition and complaining about that future event. And no, it doesn't need to be an "of course they can" inevitability. The rules of competition define what can and can't happen. If the rules of this competition allow a rebid, then that is a conscious decision. Rules / laws could be changed to disallow rebidding on follow-on contracts if there was a failure to deliver on the first one.
- boxed 1y agoI'm confused. Who are you talking about here? SpaceX has consistently been on the wrong end of what you write about, with ULA/Boeing/whatever pulling that kind of stunt again and again. Just look at the SLS budget.
- cheschire 1y agoI'm assuming SpaceX will win this, and lamenting that. However I'm also being more general because you are absolutely on the same page as me that this is a decades-old problem. I don't hate the player, I hate the game.
- flawn 1y ago[flagged]
- Forgeties79 1y ago> Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, fired back: "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry. Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words." Still marking his words on self-driving vehicles so I guess we can add this to the list. What’s the casualty count so far on that one btw? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autonomous_Tesla_vehicles_by_Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
- boxed 1y agoYou need to keep two things in your mind at the same time: Elon Musk sometimes say things that are true. Elon Must sometimes say things that are not true. In this case, it's the first one.
- askl 1y ago> Elon Musk sometimes say things that are true. Has this ever happened in the last 10 years?
- a4isms 1y agoHe has often said things that are true, provided you ignore the ten to twenty times he said something else about the same subject with equal confidence. He is a master of goalpost relocation. Ask any Cybertruck owner. He shipped it, but was it the Cybertruck he promised?
- destitude 1y agoCatching of a booster which everyone else thought was the stupidest craziest thing ever and they did it on first try.
- Forgeties79 1y agoIf people can constantly attack Steve Jobs for “just being an idea guy” while Wozniak did all the work, I think we can all agree that Elon Musk deserves (at most) limited credit for the amazing engineering achievement one of his several companies/projects accomplished. Especially given the overlap with his several-months-long stint being a Trump groupie and proudly taking a chainsaw to the US government. Yes his vision and direction matters. But let’s not act like the dude did that himself. Especially while he was so distracted having his nose up Trump’s proverbial rear.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dtj1123 1y agoRemind me why we need to get to the moon again?
- JKCalhoun 1y agoChina will remind us soon enough.
- voidUpdate 1y agoThe first time was to beat the soviets. This time is to beat china
- philipwhiuk 1y agoAmerican Republicans have invented that it's in a race with China even though it's already been and it's not clear China thinks it's a race.
- notahacker 1y agoI suspect China thinks that dominance of space comes with superior research capability, and are delighted that the current US government is doing everything it can to sabotage that whilst fixating on a symbolic achievement which shouldn't really matter much to the US...
- nilamo 1y agoWhy must there be a NEED? Why did we ever send ships across the ocean to explore? Where was the need? People like doing science, and so we're doing science.
- pfdietz 1y agoThat was (for the western hemisphere) mostly to steal gold and silver from other civilizations. Oh, and to grow addictive drugs for export, like in Virginia. It was never done for other than banal reasons, although I'm sure pious rationalizations were offered to make people feel better about the ongoing genocides.
- t1234s 1y agoSince blue origin is still developing their new glenn rocket with only a single launch so far what is the chance they use falcon heavy to deliver their blue moon lander
- loourr 1y agoStarship is more flight ready then SLS and new Glenn. It's just not fully reusable yet, so it's not ready by Spacex standards but far ahead of anyone else in the world. They could also use falcon heavy but might as well use Starship, unless they need dragon.
- imtringued 1y agoThere is no way to use falcon heavy to launch the blue moon lander without a custom payload adapter that would take as much time as building a third New Glenn booster, so the chances are exactly 0%.
- loourr 1y agoArtemis is a joke. You can tell this is politically motivated by their stance on SLS. If they were serious they would give Spacex the SLS contract for being years and years behind schedule.
- jordanb 1y agoIs starship on schedule?
- ACCount37 1y agoOf course not. But a system that's "affordable, fixed price, highly capable, delayed" beats one that's "too expensive, cost+, marginally capable, delayed". Starship is not a drop-in replacement for SLS. But it sure casts a long shadow on the entire SLS project.
- wat10000 1y agoAt $2.5 billion per launch, the worst thing that could happen with SLS is that it starts being used.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> Is starship on schedule? Difficult to say relative to current Artemis timelines, which have to date been mainly delayed by Orion. They're currently looking on schedule to perform an orbital propellant transfer in 2026. That likely means a commercial launch before the end of next year, which is crazy. How that relates to HLS is up in the air, and probably will be until the end of next year.
- verzali 1y agoYes, but in the original schedule on HLS Starship was supposed to have done the prop transfer in Q4 2022, an uncrewed lunar landing in Q1 2024, and the actual thing in Q1 2025. Of course that was always wishful thinking. I'm sure SpaceX has their "real" schedule somewhere, and maybe NASA has one too (at least from what I've heard, it is likely they have an unofficial idea of it somewhere).
- heisgone 1y agoIs there any other player that will commit with fixed-cost contract? Cost-plus is a joke.
- dzonga 1y ago[flagged]
- stetrain 1y agoBack then you'd get two legs of the Correct - Fast - Cheap triangle. It just required shoveling boatloads of money at the defense contractors. Now you can give Boeing twice as much money as SpaceX and they still fail to deliver a working product in twice the time.
- HPsquared 1y agoMaybe you can score contractors on "legs out of three".
- slowmovintarget 1y agoThat's because Boeing followed the leadership failure curve when McDonnell-Douglas took them over: Engineer -> Accountant (they are here) -> Lawyer.
- loourr 1y agoCan you name a rocket program that was delivered ahead of schedule? I'm not aware of one that exists.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y agoThe first moon landing? Kennedy wanted it done before the end of the decade and they landed in 1969. I guess you could argue that it was on schedule rather than ahead.
- loourr 1y agoTheir actual internal deadlines were significantly missed
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago"A Lunar Space Elevator [LSE] can be built today from existing commercial polymers; manufactured, launched and deployed for less than $2B. A prototype weighing 48 tons with 100 kg payload can be launched by 3 Falcon-Heavy's, and will pay for itself in 53 sample return cycles within one month. It reduces the cost of soft landing on the Moon at least threefold, and sample return cost at least ninefold" [1]. Dreams aside, this story is court politics: "Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is NASA’s acting administrator, has told people that he wants to lead the space agency" [2]. "So does Jared Isaacman—the billionaire entrepreneur who was the nominee earlier this year before President Trump withdrew his support." With "both men...jockeying to lead NASA," and, just "this past weekend, advisers and lawmakers representing Duffy and Isaacman [having] called contacts in the Trump administration—including the president himself," this announcement is politics through PR. Duffy may threatening Elon to have his man back down. He may be going scorched Earth, signalling to Trump that Musk's decision making isn't to be trusted. [1] https://opsjournal.org/DocumentLibrary/Uploads/The_Lunar_Space_Elevator_a_Near_Term_Mea%20(1).pdf https://opsjournal.org/DocumentLibrary/Uploads/The_Lunar_Spa... 2017; 2bn US2017 ~ 2.6bn US2025 [2] https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-nasa-administrator-conflict-b7df4877?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqfsMVGP3nfooDk2vYRlcaBkTX5re28lM-Z71H13f0JcmaK0QSj-zmZe&gaa_ts=68f79222&gaa_sig=et-TrzQSbbCKF-N3nnQ_vwKoVt1VBfh-Ma6yj_xCV2bipswXW62iG4jvydYGOl5nOWHPrC_H-uc303wnGV0tlg%3D%3D https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-nasa-administrator...
- nerdjon 1y agoAt the end of the day competition for SpaceX is a good thing so we don't become reliant on a single company and the whims of the person that owns it. I don't know enough about whether or not they really are behind or if this is just a bit of sensationalized reporting. But this is how it should have likely been from the beginning.
- chasd00 1y agototally, i wish Blue Origin was neck and neck with SpaceX in terms of capabilities and rate of innovation. I'm pretty much a SpaceX superfan but they need the competition.
- dmix 1y agoThe article implies the competition is coming from China, who has multiple large projects on the go including one trying to clone Starship.
- radu_floricica 1y agoI'm not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here, outside maybe PR and politics. Starships will drop the cost to other bodies in the same way Falcon dropped the cost to orbit. Why would anyone want to invest in a technology and a project that will be obsolete by the time it's implemented?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here You don't see the relevance of Artemis III launching in mid-2027 [1] or 2028 versus, say, after November 2028? [1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/
- cowsandmilk 1y agoDoes anyone vote for a president based on their ability to land on the moon?
- Waterluvian 1y agoHoly crap yes. Millions of Americans vote for a president based on exceedingly dumber reasons too.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoProbably; the moon landings had the US' popularity skyrocket, firmly landing them in every history book worldwide. If they lose this second space race to China it won't undo that achievement, but it'll be embarrassing to the ego-driven people at the top right now (notably Trump and Musk himself).
- dotnet00 1y agoRecently I saw someone claiming they voted for Trump because he hugged a flag once, and plenty of Americans proudly claim they voted for Trump so that he would "troll" their opposition.
- ACCount37 1y ago
- sidcool 1y agoSo for a few more months/a couple of years, NASA will burn 10x more money? Nah, that's not smart. Unless politics is involved.
- slowmovintarget 1y agoIt's a government agency. Politics is always involved.
- pfdietz 1y agoIt should be clear that the protection NASA had as a pork delivery vehicle has been breached. Witness the slaughter at JPL and, more generally, attack on research spending in general. Now that this has happened, expect a future democrat administration to have its revenge on human spaceflight centers in red states. Given the rot that has set in under that politically protected status, I can't see this as a bad thing.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> expect a future democrat administration to have its revenge on human spaceflight centers in red states Make Puerto Rico a state and move Cape Canaveral there.
- notahacker 1y agoThat would be interesting. But they don't even have to do anything radical, just spend more in California where there's already a major space centre and less in Florida, Texas or Alabama...
- hkdobrev 1y ago> After a slew of unplanned explosions Most were expected, when pushing the rocket to its limits to see where it would fail. > the company achieved two sub-orbital missions for its monster rocket - impressive, but still more than 200,000 miles (322,000 km) from the Moon. The test flights are suborbital due to FAA licensing requirements until they are ready to test returning to the launch tower. The role of Starship lander version in Artemis is not to directly launch to the Moon, but act as a shuttle between an orbiting vessel around the Moon and the surface of the Moon. So the comparison in miles is non-sensical. > Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said the company was "behind schedule" SpaceX is planning to test orbital refueling in 2026. It was originally scheduled for late summer of 2025, so not late with more than a couple of months. It is certainly not the slowest cog in the system. Now, it is scheduled for 2027, and SpaceX will likely test in H1 of 2026. > Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, fired back: "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry. Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words." SpaceX can completely drop out of the Artemis program and still bring astronauts to the moon earlier than Artemis. --- There are also delays with Boeing, Axiom, Lockheed Martin (and Blue Origin although for a different mission).
- destitude 1y agoConsidering nobody in the world can compete with SpaceX currently this seems purely political in nature. The EU is struggling to even come up with an answer to reusable rockets. China is the closest and will likely have something equivalent to the Falcon 9 within the next 2 years. But someone in the USA? People are delusional. Sure it is always best to have competitors but how did that work for Boeing/NASA/Starliner? You can't have two players/competitors if there is only one player in the entire world. And the reason why you need reusability is so that it is actually sustainable to use it! Does anyone here thinking this is a good idea have any idea how much it costs to launch SLS just once??
- Culonavirus 1y agoTo anyone not getting it still. SpaceX position in rocketry is comparable to that of Nvidia in AI GPUs. Thinking that Blue or anyone else will be beating them in anything any time soon is simply naive. Blue is the AMD here. The AMD that is today where Nvidia was 5 years ago. That's just the way it is. Also, like Nvidia, SpaceX has a massive budget for R&D. Just the revenue from Starlink is projected to eclipse the entire NASA budget within a couple of years, maybe sooner.
- panick21 1y ago> China is the closest and will likely have something equivalent to the Falcon 9 within the next 2 years. That's wildly optimistic. Falcon 9 launches operationally 100+ a year and single boosters with 20+ uses. Even if in the next 2 years, China has some kind of first stage that lands, its in no way 'like Falcon 9'. So lets not be unreasonably optimistic just because its China. China isn't magic and they wont have such a rocket no matter if they invest in it or not. > But someone in the USA? People are delusional. BlueOrigin is much closer then anybody in China. They have actually attempted launching a large rocket, China has not. And BlueOrigin has made its own advacned reusable engine and flown them to Orbit, argaubly China has not done that.
- shadowgovt 1y agoAnyone know the details of the scheduling situation here? Is this a "SpaceX spread itself too thin and wasn't able to keep its own pre-agreed deadlines" situation or a "The government-specified contract was unrealistically aggressive / so vaguely-specified that it could not be realized within its original timetable" situation?
- panick21 1y agoIts an incredibly complex ever evolving situation. Basically, originally Starship has entered development for SpaceX had nothing todo with any of this. SpaceX started to spend on Starship for their own reasons. Then in Trump 1, he simply inveded a super agressive 'get to the moon' goal. 'Moon 2024'. This was mostly a fantasy goal but it sounded good politically. NASA for various reasons, had aboslutly no money to fund a moon lander. But if the president asked, they have to do it. So they threw out very opened ended ask for a moon lander, and a single moon landing. There wasn't the kind of question asked like, what kind of system should we use for moon exploration in the next 2 decades. Or anything like that. It was more like 'how can we land on the moon once in 2024 and then we do new contracts after that'. SpaceX, naturally justed adopted their existing Starship platform. But to make that work, they would need to figure out many things beyond just a 'lander'. And SpaceX bid was wildly to ambitious. It in many cases provided far, far more then NASA asked for. But NASA doesn't care about the capability, only if the bid can do the minium they asked for. SpaceX won because they were willing to pay for almost all of it themselves, only asking for 2.3 billion $. And that included a test moon landing before the real one. This is of course only a fraction of the cost for the whole Starship program. So Space didn't spread themselves to thin, they are all in on Starship, but the simple reality is, its an incredibly difficult wide reaching program. And the moon lander part is just a little add on to that larger project. And that's the only reason 2.3 billion $ would be acceptable to SpaceX. The simple reality is, nobody on the planet knows how to do a moon lander for 2.3 billion $, literally nobody. So the time table way always fantasy and literally everybody knew that as soon as it was announced. Nobody was to public about it because offending Trump is bad, so lets all just collectivly pretend its real. The government contract was unfocused and short term focused, without a larger strategy for moon exploration. The real issue however isn't with this one contract, but the how the whole NASA Human Spaceflight program is organized.
- Culonavirus 1y agoThis is some hilarious shit to anyone even remotely interested in rocketry. Lol. Lmao even.
- ByteDrifter 1y agoThis reminds me of the Space Shuttle era. Back then, relying too much on a single vendor and working under tight timelines led to repeated delays and safety risks. SpaceX is incredibly capable, but past experience shows it's always safer to have alternatives.
- philipallstar 1y agoCompared to the institutional players who get money for doing almost nothing, SpaceX is still definitely the alternative.
- arnaudsm 1y agoI highly recommend this talk at the American Astronomical Society from last year, which talks about the engineering culture at NASA and why Artemis has been slower than Apollo so far. https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU?t=1112 https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU?t=1112
- kreetx 1y agoSo many interesting details there!
- gammarator 1y ago(American _Astronautical_ Society)
- Buttons840 1y agoThis is Destin of SmarterEveryDay. This is a very good speech, very courageous and has implications for all of society. American society seems to be more and more controlled by people in positions where they cannot fail. The example that originally put this idea in my head was the Mozilla CEO who, oversaw a year during which Firefox usership fell, and Mozilla workers were fired, and then the CEO received a pay raise. A job where it's not possible to fail. You get paid no matter what, probably get a raise. In the video Destin keeps asking "we're going right?", throughout the whole video, and the truth is everyone in the room is hesitant to say yes. Destin keeps narrating and apologizing for his own speech (because he doesn't want to burn every bridge he has with NASA), but history will make Destin look like a prophet I think. I think this speech is worthy of the history books.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> is a very good speech, very courageous Really? It’s eye opening. But Destin seems to miss the point. We’re not trying to go back to the Moon, one and done. That was Apollo. We’re trying to build a system that reduces the repeat cost of Moon access, with medium-term plans for permanent settlement. (Like in Antarctica. Not The Expanse.) His criticism of Artemis is on point. But his anchoring to Apollo is bewilderingly blind. If we’re just redoing Apollo, the programme should be defunded. (If a NASA administrator set that as a goal, I’d argue the NASA manned spaceflight programme might need to be overhauled.) > everyone in the room is hesitant to say yes This is like Trump complaining his generals won’t laugh at his jokes. These are senior NASA scientists. They’re listening to a talk, not a rally.
- blackcatsec 1y agoI guess it depends on the objective of the relative programs. SpaceX made for an ambitious project, that to date, appears to have bitten off more than it can chew: A full-flow staged combustion engine, which proven works (yay) most of the time (not yay). If you follow the Starship launches, look at the random engines that go out on the Super Heavy every time it launches. The engines going out during ascent aren't planned outages. A rapidly re-usable second stage. This is by far the most challenging part of the program. It turns out, returning things from space is mad difficult. And while I think it's great that we are investigating ways to make this happen, I'm a bit bearish on whether Starship itself will be the vehicle and team that ultimately figures this out. However, at the very least, there's a ton of science being done here that will ultimately help making this a reality. Starship isn't returning in any meaningfully reusable form just yet. And while they've figured out how to get the thing up suborbital, there's yet no guarantee on the survivability of the vehicle itself. I am for sure certain that Elon is very likely unhappy with having to use heat shield tiles because they are not reusable. We don't yet know the stresses on the vehicle itself when returning from space and just how reusable the second stage actually is. Nor, for that matter, just how usable the second stage is. Do I think they'll figure out how to get it to orbit? Of course. Do I think they'll figure out how to make it rapidly reusable? I'm not sure. And we won't yet know for a couple of years. Getting a payload to LEO as far as rocket launches are concerned is "easy" relative to the loftier goals of the Moon, and by much further extension, Mars. The Moon is significantly harder to pull off and that's why the Saturn V was a 3-stage rocket. In order to make all of this worth it, Starship and Super Heavy must be rapidly reusable--with a turnaround measured in hours/days, not weeks and months. And I'm just not sure it's there yet. Which really sucks, because getting mass to orbit is critically important for us to dominate our solar system. I think the research is important, personally. And I'm glad we're investing at least some money into these projects. But there's no way Starship and Super Heavy meet the timelines allocated. But I'm wishing the best for the team to figure out something. And if not them, then some future generation that piggybacks off of the work they did to do it better.
- IT4MD 1y ago[flagged]
- dang 1y agoWe've banned this account for posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments and ignoring our request to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. (Not a defensive of clown billionaires. Just trying to have an internet forum that doesn't suck.)
- namlem 1y agoThis would be such a dumb move on the government's part. "Lose the new space race" is ridiculous PR-brain. We are not racing to the same goal! China is trying to land on the moon, we are trying to establish a permanent presence. There is no value to merely returning to the moon to say we did it, and Starship is the only vehicle that can plausibly deliver huge quantities of cargo to the lunar surface.
- random3 1y agoWhat’s the main motivation for the moon? Is it a better location than the international space station? What’s the reasoning there?
- arthurcolle 1y agoI think the general idea is to set up a radio telescope there
- vrindavan1 1y agoI think its to prepare for mars (sort of), its the closest place where we can build a self-sustaining civilization.
- random3 1y agobecause this civilization is not self-sutaining?
- FloorEgg 1y agoIf you value complexity, life, diversity, and adventure, then two self sustaining civilizations are better than one.
- Ekaros 1y agoCan we actually? And I mean in any reasonable time frame say 100 years? And by self-sustaining I take fully independent from Earth supply chain for absolutely everything. A civilization that could continue existing without single delivery for Earth.
- gradientsrneat 1y agoDuffy is a Trump appointee, so this could be part of the continuing fallout of the Trump/Elon relationship. The Republican majority Congress has also attempted to partially defund NASA, and the government is shut down because Congress couldn't pass a budget. On top of that, space engineering is hard. So, of course there are delays.
- FloorEgg 1y agoElon is competing with a lot of entrenched interests that would actively try to influence Trump to undermine Elon: - oil and gas industry - ICE automotive industry - telecom industry - media industry - and of course... Aerospace and defense industry (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.) There are a lot of very rich very powerful people that want Elon to fail, and any way they can undermine him would be a win for them. I say this as someone who really tries to have a balanced opinion on Elon and the topic as a whole, including recognition of all of Elon's flaws. The military-media-industrial complex can be out to get Elon and spending a lot of money to turn the public against him AND he can have a lot of flaws AND he can be not as bad as everyone thinks because of said media influence.
- leobg 1y agoBrave thing to say on HN. There are a few people here who will downvote any comment that contains the word “Elon”, “SpaceX” or “Tesla” if the comment’s saltiness score is less than 8/10.
- FloorEgg 1y agoPerhaps. I am doing my best to stay emotionally detached from this topic and maintain a balanced view, and very open to reasoned arguments and being wrong. Hacker News is one of the last places I feel comfortable engaging in this way, and not always (sometimes I step on a land mine and get surprised), but if it's not here, I don't know where else to go, and that feels like a shame. I don't care much about the points, so long as I can keep engaging. So I do my best to follow the guidelines and have faith in the moderation to keep me and others in check, even if sometimes I slip up or encounter what seems like an unfair reaction. To censor myself from being inquisitive or rationally explore a sensitive topic in a place like this just feels too dystopian for me to accept.
- croes 1y ago> pushed the deadline for a lunar landing to the end of the Trump administration in 2029. I wonder why this happened. Hopefully not to satisfy the ego of the POTUS. That kind of rush leads to disaster
- ApolloFortyNine 1y agoThey were literally 'inventing the wheel' of space travel in the 1960's to meet JFK's deadline. Four years may sound insane to you, but they did in 8 during a time they were still using slide rules and the integrated circuit didn't even exist for 80% of the duration. To me it's more insane that anyone is putting priority into more manned missions when you can launch at least 10x unmanned for the same cost. Scientifically speaking, I'm not sure what exists to be gained by a human on another planet versus a rover. A manned colony sounds cool but that's about the extent of its usefulness.
- perryizgr8 1y ago> during a time they were still using slide rules tbh i would rather they use slide rules than chatgpt to build rockets.
- heisgone 1y agoI can imagine SpaceX choosing to self-finance a mission to the moon and beat NASA at it.
- ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y ago> I can imagine That probably does require some imagination. Starting with any incentive to do so.
- nialse 1y agoImagine hurt egos with deep pockets and it ain’t that hard.
- CursedSilicon 1y agoCheaper for them to just whine to the orange painted king, at least right now
- inglor_cz 1y agoMusk is complicated to say the least. He seems to have a pattern of expensive overreactions to what he perceives as slights. Allegedly, SpaceX only exists because some Russian engineer spit on him during tense price negotiations back in 2002. His purchase of Twitter wasn't cheap either.
- WalterBright 1y ago> SpaceX only exists because some Russian engineer spit on him And Musk got the best revenge evar!
- inglor_cz 1y agoNow recall what the incentive to put the first man on the Moon was...
- testing22321 1y ago
- xnx 1y agoThe best outcome would be the cancellation of manned moon missions. The original space race was a pissing match between the US and USSR. I would've hoped we had matured past that.
- themafia 1y agoWhich would be a salient point if _nothing_ of value came out of the space program. That's about as far from reality as you can get. The primary, chartered, goal of NASA is to create a commercial space industry. Ignoring this is a sign of extreme immaturity.
- xnx 1y agoSpace exploration is great, but manned missions are dictated by vanity and congressional pork more than scientific needs.
- ApolloFortyNine 1y agoYea, it was an insane achievement in 1969, but today the technology exists, it's really just the money that's missing.
- themafia 1y ago> but manned missions are dictated by vanity We were last on the moon in 1972. We haven't been back since. That's nothing even remotely like "vanity." I think there's a vanity involved in making this type of comment. > and congressional pork If the public wants it then it's not pork. > more than scientific needs. "Scientific needs" is not a well defined category. Those who proclaim to represent it while expecting it to hold a higher value than the will of the voters are misanthropic bullies.
- notahacker 1y agoThe thing is, NASA has already a great job creating a commercial space industry, much of it since the Space Race. The more salient question is whether manned return to the moon missions on vanity timelines are a better way to boost the commercial space industry than the research programmes that got slashed.
- cladopa 1y agoOh yeah. Replace the stainless steel by carbon fibre, give it to your pals of Boing and instead of being ready in 2030 for 2.3 billion it will be ready in 2050 for 50 billion. Much better for making your friends rich.
- imtringued 1y agoIsn't Rocket Lab doing carbon fibre rockets?
- albumen 1y agoCarbon fibre second stages that melt/burn up on re-entry.
- consumer451 1y agoPeter Beck says that "we like the black." The tiny Electron is entirely carbon, isn't it? Their new Neutron has a fully reusable first stage, also out of carbon fiber. For Neutron, they have the largest automated fiber placement machine known to exist: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zmJdJIlPOr4 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zmJdJIlPOr4
- audunw 1y agoAnd? We still have yet to see whether full re-usability of the second stage is the best approach. The Neutron approach is really interesting, they can make the second stage incredibly light and cheap. Blue Origin claims the economics of a super-cheap disposable second stage, even for as one as large as theirs, is pretty much equal to a more expensive and heavier reusable second stage. (they're developing both in parallel to see where the chips land).
- ActorNightly 1y agoSpace X isn't much better. Its still Musks company.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
- bahmboo 1y ago"The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term" - Sean Duffy NASA administrator. A scary way to set a schedule on a complex project with lives at stake. They don't care though.
- ACCount37 1y agoThe current 2027 deadline is a sad joke. By now, a slip to NET 2030 is expected - but clearly, no one is in a hurry to break the news to Trump.
- ericmcer 1y agoI mean JFK said basically the same thing, and with way more unknowns facing him. I dunno if the reception was that he doesn't care about astronauts lives.
- WalterBright 1y agoHaving a deadline is how things get done. With no deadline, nothing gets accomplished.
- notahacker 1y agoThe (aero)space industry tends to do rather well out of it being acceptable to miss deadlines though...
- bahmboo 1y agoThis is a political deadline with no grounding in reality.
- opwieurposiu 1y agoHey, it worked when JFK did it!
- jjk166 1y agoWho was president during the moonlanding?
- baggachipz 1y agoNASA: "We may need to boot SpaceX" SpaceX: makes political contribution to executive branch NASA: "SpaceX is back on the menu, boys!"
- imron 1y agoNASA: "We may need to boot SpaceX" SpaceX: makes the only rockets capable of actually doing anything NASA: "SpaceX is back on the menu, boys!"
- baggachipz 1y agoThese two situations are not mutually exclusive. Though the financial shake-down can preempt your situation.
- teekert 1y agoWhy does this sounds so... Entitled? NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves... Now suddenly there is a new moon race and they start pointing to a public company that is not sticking to a schedule. A company that does some impressive things, and has helped them out (probably not out of the goodness of their hearts, but hey), and is doing things they could not. I would be an adult about it and respond reasonable, perhaps even ask NASA for help, publicly. I'm afraid Elon is about to give them the finger and drive around on the moon by himself, two fingers pointing at NASA head quarters. I would smile about that a bit, I admit.
- philipallstar 1y ago> probably not out of the goodness of their hearts, but hey It's a terrible idea to rely on this. Why would you want people to work this way when you can just have a regular-person financial transaction that aligns your interests?
- teekert 1y agoFWIW, I absolutely agree. I just wanted to stress that the helping with the Boeing situation was something that, in a way, one could be a bit grateful for. But yeah, its not necessary.
- asadotzler 1y agoDuffy wants to fold NASA into the Department of Transportation and make it a Moon transport focused organization. He cares nothing of science or discovery and if he can show that SpaceX is behind in its transport contract, that helps his argument that NASA should be in the transport business which helps his argument that NASA should be a part of the DOT.
- fooker 1y agoI don't understand the modern US trend of putting unqualified people in charge. It's not just the republicans though, seems like a deeper cultural issue. There has been close to zero scientists in charge of policy in the last several decades. This sort of thing is why China keeps pulling ahead. While we have this dude figuring out how NASA can be gutted further, China has ~2.5 space agencies, and without Spacex doing our heavylifting, they would have been already ahead. They expect to have something like Falcon 9 pretty soon, which implies a starlink competitor in a matter of years.
- esotericsean 1y agoInstead of competing with other nations, what if we all worked together as humans?
- mrguyorama 1y agoWe tried that but then Russia kept invading it's neighbors. Things were very awkward on the ISS a few Februaries ago.
- stackedinserter 1y agoWho is ahead of SpaceX for payloads of similar scale?
- HPsquared 1y agoIt would be cool if the main space race was between NASA and SpaceX. It's like how the US has three of the top five air forces in the world (USAF, Army, Navy)
- 9dev 1y agoIt ain’t, though. NASA hasn’t retained much of their previous capabilities, and China’s space program is making progress fast.
- TimReynolds 1y agoAren’t all of the other providers even further behind than SpaceX?
- kadonoishi 1y agoNote Elon said he'd destroy the Republicans for their budget vote last June: https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1lojll9/if_its_the_last_thing_i_do_elon_musk_vows_to/ https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1lojll9/if_its_th...
- mcintyre1994 1y agoShockingly that seems to have been bullshit, which you just wouldn’t expect from Elon Musk.
- jmyeet 1y agoThere's a lot of SpaceX fanboyism in this thread but there are three big problems with SpaceX's Moon project: 1. Starship is still far from being production-ready, proven to be reliable and rated for human transport, a goal that will itself take many launches beyond being proven for delivering payloads to LEO and geosynchronous orbits (as well, I guess, deep space missions?); 2. The market for commercial Starship launches is far from proven and the risk of this is being ignored or downplayed by so many. Starship's biggest problem and competitor is... the Falcon 9, something the Falcon 9 never had to contend with. The market for even larger payloads seem to be limited. The evidence? There are over 100 Falcon 9 launches a year. There's about ~1 Falcon Heavy launch per year. And Falcon Heavy is pretty cost effective. The biggest customer seems to be the military who wants to get really large payloads to geosynchronous orbit. Now will Starlink bootstrap Starship demand in the same way that it did for Falcon 9 reusable boosters? Maybe. But it's not proven; and 3. Starship just doesn't make a great Moon lander. Why? You have to land this really tall vehicle in low gravity on unknown ground when it could possibly tip over in a way that Apollo landers never really could (because they were short, wide and significantly lighter). And then when you land? Your astronauts are ~40 meters off the ground. How are they getting back and forth? Starship actually reminds me of the Steve Ballmer "Windows everywhere" era. Or the F35 jet-for-all-branches boondoggle. Ballmer wanted to run Windows on every device where Apple launched iOS alongside MacOS. Ballmer bought Sidekick, which was really successful at the time, and basically killed it by not innovating and trying to migrate it to Windows Mobile OS. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of simple minds." as the quote goes. These projects end up being not very good at any application in an effort to be able to do too much. I'm starting to wonder if this is Starship's core problem. What might save Starship is that BlueOrigin is absolutely nowhere, ULA is a joke, the Europeans are nowhere and SLS is a massive jobs program. I have more faith in China's space program than any of those.
- KylerAce 1y agoTangent but while the joint strike fighter program's decision to "save costs" by developing one platform for three branches may arguably have been a bad idea, by all respects except for perhaps long term maintenance costs the f35 is the most effective fighter in the skies.
- aaronbrethorst 1y agoIs this a corrupt, punitive attack against Elon Musk over the falling out between him and Trump? Is this based on a strong, factual basis? Who knows! If Musk was still in tight with Trump, and this potential booting was based on a strong, factual basis, would it still be in the works? Who knows!
- robgibbons 1y agoWhat else are they going to use? A trampoline?
- mmmlinux 1y agocurrent employee status spacex: at work nasa: not at work
- allenrb 1y agoThere is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the second flight test and certainly now. They could have built a “dumb” second stage at any time, but aren’t that short-sighted. 3. Blue Origin? I’ve had high hopes for the guys for two decades now. Don’t hold your breath. 4. Anyone else? Really, really don’t hold your breath. This whole “race to the moon, part II” is almost criminally stupid. Land on the moon when we can accomplish something there, not just to prove we haven’t lost our mojo since Apollo.
- hinkley 1y agoSLS is such a maintenance mode project that I have a failure of imagination in seeing how it helps aerospace companies with their ulterior motive of remaining in standby for a war posture. A lot of that so-called pork is really about keeping the home fires burning.
- bamboozled 1y agoI thought we wanted to save money ?
- tibbydudeza 1y agoThe Chinese is planning a space habitat - the US is aiming for the same - it is rather different from the Apollo objectives. Mars is out of reach and not feasible.
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoMars is entirely within reach if we wanted to dedicate the resources to it. If we can get to the moon over 50 years ago, Mars is nothing today. I don't necessarily think it would be worth it given the cost, but it is totally possible if it was a priority.
- tibbydudeza 1y agoWell Musk responded in typical Muskian fashion. First he is now called Sean Dummy. “Should someone whose biggest claim to fame is climbing trees be running America’s space program?”
- drivebyhooting 1y agoHow is SLS different from the shuttle? It uses the same engines (but throws them away) and costs astronomically to launch. Could we just bring back the shuttle?
- QuiEgo 1y agoThinking you're going to end up with a _more aggressive_ schedule than an Elon company with the traditional mil-aerospace players is quite the bold call.
- rappatic 1y agoYeah, right. And replace them with whom?
- samrus 1y agoIm not a musk fanboy or anything but who can do better? Its dangerous to support a monopoly but if one provider is far ahead of the others then it makes sense to just use that. How much of these delays are due to spacex and how much are just the inherent variance of the task
- StarterPro 1y ago(explodes before it can reach)SpaceX is just as rushed as Boeing is. I wouldn't trust Sean Duffy to successfully watch paint dry, let alone anything space related.
- stainablesteel 1y agoit's really just a massive sign of disrespect, clearly there's no one capable of competing with spacex, who is already known for beating deadlines, but they insist on insulting them like this why? "it's 10 years from now and they're behind schedule", what kind of schedule is this?
- destitude 1y agoNow we know why Isaacman was removed from nomination because he wouldn't have put up with this BS.
- NelsonMinar 1y agoElon Musk has reacted in his usual professional manner. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/elon-musk-rages-against-pete-buttigiegs-replacement-sean-duffy-posts-homophobic-jokes/ https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/elon-musk-rages-against-... Musk ... decided to respond by posting a meme of a reporter saying, “Why are you gay?” ... He called Duffy “Sean Dummy” ... Musk posted a reality TV clip calling him an “a*s rocket”
- nova22033 1y agoElon is handling this well https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/why-are-you-gay-elon-musk-rages-at-top-trump-official-over-loss-of-government-contract/ https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/why-are-you-gay-elon-mus...
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoNone of this is real. Duffy and Isaacman are fighting to be head of NASA. This is that fight spilling from Washington over the weekend onto Twitter today because of course it has with this administration. Duffy, as acting head of NASA, is trying to lob a threat at Musk, Isaacman’s patron. He’s done so poorly, and so here we are.
- dboreham 1y agoIn what way is Musk Isaacman's patron? He's a billionaire on his own.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> In what way is Musk Isaacman's patron? He's a billionaire on his own But politically impotent. Isaacman was Musk's man at NASA. His nomination came up because of Musk. It was annulled because of Musk. The question seems to be coming back up due to Isaacman's work. But because Isaacman is Musk's client, it's risen back to Musk and Duffy trading insults on Twitter. (Which, to be clear, is an elevation Duffy--purposely or inadvertently--caused.)
- elzbardico 1y agoLots of people complaining that we have already won the "moon race" and that this makes no sense. This is a completely wrong reading of the situation. Let's say we forgot how to do heart transplants. Once we did them a few times perfectly, got all surgical techniques right, but patients died shortly after the surgery due to rejection. We quit the whole transplants stuff for years, the techniques and the equipments were lost over time. But then, some 40 years later, we now knew a lot more about immunology, have incredibly advanced drugs, and an aging population. So, because of that, we decided to develop the surgical procedure techniques, long-lost, again. This is a good analogy for the situation. The moon is an important milestone for further commercial and scientific exploration of the space. We lost the ability we once had to reach it. And anyway, we were not as ready as we are today to follow the next logical steps. If we manage to harvest water from moon ice now, we will be establishing the basis for a kind of serious exploration and development that we weren't nearly ready to achieve in the past. So, no, we are not doing it just to prove "we haven't lost our mojo", for bragging rights. We are doing it because we are in a development stage where it makes sense to finally return to the moon.
- zm262 1y agoIt matters more to US politically than scientifically. It's totally about the US mojo in the eyes of politicians and thus funding.
- enraged_camel 1y agoThis dismissal is quite shallow. Yes, it matters politically - but that has enormous downstream repercussions. China beating us to the Moon helps reinforce the narrative that the American century of global dominance is over, and China is the new superpower that is unseating it. The implications of that would go well beyond politics.
- gorbachev 1y agoYou don't win that fight by sending a few folks to the moon. You win it using the playbook the CCP has been systematically and very successfully implementing for a few decades. They are very good at long-term planning. The US plans in 4-year (or 8-year) cycles, and often times reverse course completely at the end of those.
- sidcool 1y agoStupid politics
- RagnarD 1y agoElon should land a mission on the moon completely independently of NASA and tell them to stuff it. Which is very probably what NASA is afraid of.
- ThinkBeat 1y agoI am sure they could give Boeing a few more billion dollars to expand on their successful Starliner platform to build a moon rocket in way less time than SpaceX.
- DonHopkins 1y agoMaybe Musk shouldn't have tweeted (then deleted) the obvious fact that Trump is on the Epstein list. Makes you wonder, since Musk knew Trump is a pedo all along (and he loves calling people out as "pedo guy"), why did he invest so much money, time, reputation, ketamine, and Nazi salutes into getting Trump elected, then cowardly retract one of the only true things he ever tweeted, just to support the coverup instead of the truth?
- engineer_22 1y agojust thinking epistemologically, if everything else Musk says is a lie, how do you know the epstein tweet is true?
- DonHopkins 1y agoWe know it's true because he deleted the tweet. How about releasing the Epstein files so we can all find out for sure? Or do you have a problem with that, and want to protect pedos just like Mike Johnson and Trump do? Charlie Kirk certainly wanted the Epstein files to be released, and look what happened to him.
- engineer_22 1y agoNo I'm just trying to understand how you're putting the information together.
- DonHopkins 1y agoDo you have any reason to believe that there is even the remotest possibility that Trump is NOT in the Epstein files?
- noobermin 1y agoThe subtext here is because of the Trump and Musk fallout, they're souring on Space X, isn't it?
- busssard 1y agojust a further jab from Trump against Elon i guess. "Hey NASA boot Elon or i will cut your funding"
- cubefox 1y ago> In a statement to Reuters, Bob Behnken, vice president of Exploration and Technology Strategy at Lockheed Martin's space unit, said the company this year has been conducting "significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers." > "We have been working with a cross-industry team of companies and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy's request to meet our country’s lunar objectives," said Behnken, a retired NASA astronaut. https://www.reuters.com/science/us-seek-rival-bids-artemis-3-spacex-lags-nasa-chief-says-2025-10-20/ https://www.reuters.com/science/us-seek-rival-bids-artemis-3...
- dev1ycan 1y agoStarship was the big scam, Elon sold a lot and in the end it became clear over time that really the entire point of Starship was never Mars, or even the Moon... or Space Tourism, a different type of vehicle would have probably been better for that, it's about reducing the cost of launch missions to maximize profit and take out the primary source of income of competing players so they can have a monopoly of space. Are they ahead of everyone else? yes, sadly, but Starship is a questionable design for a lunar mission, starting with the fact that it'll require an elevator to go up and down... 50 meters down. And for Mars it's even worse, no real way of refueling and even if there was, it's also hard enough for them to get off Earth imagine winging it from Mars with all the potential hazards such as dust. Well at least Musk will make good money from space launches, hopefully Starlink is declared illegal for the potential future atmospheric catastrophy the massive launches of LEO satellites might cause. https://csl.noaa.gov/news/2025/427_0428.html https://csl.noaa.gov/news/2025/427_0428.html
- nmeofthestate 1y ago> it's about reducing the cost of launch missions to maximize profit and take out the primary source of income of competing players so they can have a monopoly of space. Diabolical stuff.
- roody15 1y agoThis makes me think of Intels decline over the last decade or so. It feels to me like a canary in a coal mine. Perhaps of a failing in the US system as a whole. It is possible we are not quite the world leader we once were, despite bailouts, despite legislation like the CHIPS act, despite a CEO dedicated to a roadmap to regain technical superiority … maybe we cannot win this race. Have we reached a point where managing public perception is more important than truth, where wealth inequality has reached a point of a new feudal like caste system, where our institutions now function to primarily manage and preserve an unhealthy society that is primarily exploitative and does not have the needs of the populace first and foremost. Where economic indicators, economic lingo and policy just uses a vernacular to hide its direct purpose to provide safety for the haves at the expense of the have nots. I realize this is a negative take but looking at Lockheed Martin , looking at Boeing, on and on. Maybe we cannot get back to the moon, maybe we cannot design the best new modern passenger jet, maybe just maybe China has already surpassed or at least equaled the US as a superpower.
- stevage 1y agoIt is just occurring to you now that the US is in decline?
- the_other 1y ago> where wealth inequality has reached a point of a new feudal like caste system This is a global problem, not limited to the US. It's also the end-state of capitalism because having (access to) more money makes it easier to have access to more money, and money drives everything else. > where our institutions now function to primarily manage and preserve an unhealthy society that is primarily exploitative and does not have the needs of the populace first and foremost. For me, it has always looked like the use was primarily exploitative and completely opposed to supporting the populace. > Where economic indicators, economic lingo and policy just uses a vernacular to hide its direct purpose to provide safety for the haves at the expense of the have nots. This is not new. Chomsky told us this in the 60s. The Catholic Church used a similar strategy for over a millennia. I'm not disagreeing with you, only attempting to disperse your sense of surprise.
- mooonmaaan 1y ago[dead]
- rzerowan 1y agoHmm , considering theres some other piece of news out there stating "Trump administration considering eliminating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)" [0] , makes this look like a turf war between the two . Gov entity vs billionaire cotractor looking to clean up on the contracts, with the previously proposed budget already gutting NASA capabilities making it more or less a foregone conclusion that US space will be dominated by private interests. With the expected outlook of funneling tax dollars to private corps , this looks like each entity staking out their claims and playing hardball for their future roles. [0] https://x.com/NewsWire_US/status/1980679333002764602 https://x.com/NewsWire_US/status/1980679333002764602
- more_corn 1y agoI have no love for anything to do with Elon, but if you think you’ll accelerate your timeline by bringing blue origin back into the picture you are sadly mistaken and may end up killing the landing party.