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As I see it Musk is lobbying the goverment to give him money to do useless stuff & expensive in space like land on the moon again - basically redirecting funds

As I see it Musk is lobbying the goverment to give him money to do useless stuff & expensive in space like land on the moon again - basically redirecting funds away from useful stuff like the James Webb Telescope for publicity stunts. Not any different from the legacy aerospace companies, who also lobbied like crazy, except on a bigger, dumber scale.

ChocolateGod 1mo ago
Starship is mostly funded by Starlink. Yes, Musk is a crappy character, but that's not a reason to make things up. This isn't Reddit.
- Morromist 1mo ago
  Starship isn't actually operational. I'll let you look at their plans for it and you can tell me if they involve doing things the goverment would pay for like landing on the moon and building space stations or not.
  - inemesitaffia 1mo ago
    >redirecting funds away from useful stuff like the James Webb Telescope for publicity stunts The point is this isn't happening. Almost everything you're complaining about happened under Biden, who Musk wasn't on good terms with. SpaceX is the cheapest provider of the services it offers, and the government is a large customer but has been less than half of revenue since before 2024. If the government wants to build a space station (Vast, Axiom, Voyager) or land something(Firefly, Intuitive Machines) or someone on the moon(SpaceX, Blue Origin) , it will find contractors that can do all or part. The contractors here are BAE Space & Mission Systems (fka Ball Aerospace), L3Harris, and Teledyne. i.e the "NASA" money always ends up at some corp. And complaining about SpaceX stealing money is ignorance. It's worth noting that the primary contractor for the ISS is Boeing, but Leidos and KBR are involved.
- pmdr 1mo ago
  Musk used to be reddit's darling. People's newfound hate for him seem to cloud their judgment and make them forget what made Musk their darling in the first place.
dotancohen 1mo ago
Then you see it wrong. Plans for returning humans to the surface of the moon have been being developed for longer than you've known Musk's name. The Artemis program was developed out of the Constellation program, which was initiated sometime around 2005 or 6.
- Morromist 1mo ago
  How is landing on the moon not a publicity stunt? What can the humans do that massively cheaper robots couldn't - besides take some awesome photos and bring back some more moon rocks? Of course there have long been plans to go back to the moon because its a cool fun thing to do and whoever happens to be president would likely be well remembered for taking credit for it. That doesn't give it credibility as a useful endeavor.
  - ChocolateGod 1mo ago
    > How is landing on the moon not a publicity stunt? What can the humans do that massively cheaper robots couldn't - besides take some awesome photos and bring back some more moon rocks? Humans have intuition and curiosity, they can spot something quickly in the distance that looks peculiar, go to it and quickly inspect it.
  - ralfd 1mo ago
    Even if it is a publicity stunt it was not lobbied by Elon Musk. Also Jeff Bezos Blue Origin got more money for the Artemis program.
    - Morromist 1mo ago
      I see. And how do you you know that elon, a notably close supporter of the president didn't have anything to do with the Artemis program? I notice that Chinese electric vehicles are essentially banned in the US, but probably that had nothing to do with Elon as well right? And what does it matter if Blue Origin also made money on the Artemis program?
      - 1mo ago

ChocolateGod 1mo ago

Starship is mostly funded by Starlink. Yes, Musk is a crappy character, but that's not a reason to make things up. This isn't Reddit.

Morromist 1mo ago
Starship isn't actually operational. I'll let you look at their plans for it and you can tell me if they involve doing things the goverment would pay for like landing on the moon and building space stations or not.
- inemesitaffia 1mo ago
  >redirecting funds away from useful stuff like the James Webb Telescope for publicity stunts The point is this isn't happening. Almost everything you're complaining about happened under Biden, who Musk wasn't on good terms with. SpaceX is the cheapest provider of the services it offers, and the government is a large customer but has been less than half of revenue since before 2024. If the government wants to build a space station (Vast, Axiom, Voyager) or land something(Firefly, Intuitive Machines) or someone on the moon(SpaceX, Blue Origin) , it will find contractors that can do all or part. The contractors here are BAE Space & Mission Systems (fka Ball Aerospace), L3Harris, and Teledyne. i.e the "NASA" money always ends up at some corp. And complaining about SpaceX stealing money is ignorance. It's worth noting that the primary contractor for the ISS is Boeing, but Leidos and KBR are involved.
pmdr 1mo ago
Musk used to be reddit's darling. People's newfound hate for him seem to cloud their judgment and make them forget what made Musk their darling in the first place.

dotancohen 1mo ago

Then you see it wrong. Plans for returning humans to the surface of the moon have been being developed for longer than you've known Musk's name. The Artemis program was developed out of the Constellation program, which was initiated sometime around 2005 or 6.

Morromist 1mo ago
How is landing on the moon not a publicity stunt? What can the humans do that massively cheaper robots couldn't - besides take some awesome photos and bring back some more moon rocks? Of course there have long been plans to go back to the moon because its a cool fun thing to do and whoever happens to be president would likely be well remembered for taking credit for it. That doesn't give it credibility as a useful endeavor.
- ChocolateGod 1mo ago
  > How is landing on the moon not a publicity stunt? What can the humans do that massively cheaper robots couldn't - besides take some awesome photos and bring back some more moon rocks? Humans have intuition and curiosity, they can spot something quickly in the distance that looks peculiar, go to it and quickly inspect it.
- ralfd 1mo ago
  Even if it is a publicity stunt it was not lobbied by Elon Musk. Also Jeff Bezos Blue Origin got more money for the Artemis program.
  - Morromist 1mo ago
    I see. And how do you you know that elon, a notably close supporter of the president didn't have anything to do with the Artemis program? I notice that Chinese electric vehicles are essentially banned in the US, but probably that had nothing to do with Elon as well right? And what does it matter if Blue Origin also made money on the Artemis program?
    - 1mo ago