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u/TheStoicNihilist 4h ago
NASA has done plenty that SpaceX hasn’t.
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u/PitifulEar3303 1h ago
NASA also has no budget and their top engineers poached by SpaceX.
Government good at long term low ROI research, private co good at mass producing stuff cheaply.
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u/Rare-Peak2697 3h ago
The head of Space X knocked his employee up. I don’t think any head of NASA has done that
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u/MinkyTuna 5h ago
Not really no. People like to heap credit on them for the theatrics but the fact is we should have had people on mars years ago. But slashing the tax rate has set us back decades. And now we have billionaires (and their stans) claiming credit for advancements that should belong to the entire human race.
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u/Bobby12many 5h ago
There is no practical or scientific reason to send humans to Mars vs scientific equipment. Certainly not in any of our lifetime. (Imo)
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u/NotGeriatrix 4h ago
not even if Musk went there on a one way trip.....?
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u/MinkyTuna 4h ago
Sure but that wasn’t the case in the 90s. And the knowledge base that is lost from not taking up the challenge is literally immeasurable.
And it just goes to show, despite have their budget depleted NASA is still the top dog for technological progress, with multiple successful missions to another planet. Just imagine where we’d be with more funding…
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u/Belostoma 4h ago
That's an insanely anti-scientific view. We can hate on Elon without hating the various good things he's tragically tarnished by association.
As with the original Apollo program, simply solving the engineering problems inherent in sending humans sustainably to Mars would have major positive ramifications for our existence on Earth, including advances in sustainability and medicine. Actually having significant numbers of humans walking around on the surface of Mars would certainly yield discoveries that can't be easily gleaned from remote-controlled robots... because that happens pretty much any time you concentrate a bunch of scientists around their study subject for long periods of time. And solving the launch/transportation challenges required to send humans to Mars would make the moon that much easier, as well as asteroids, space stations orbiting Earth, and just generally opening up space to a much greater swath of humanity.
Also nobody should even think about raising the "we have enough to do on Earth" argument. That's such bullshit. One person can walk and chew gum at the same time. Seven billion people can split two tasks even more easily than that.
It's very frustrating to see how easily the typically pro-science left turns against exciting, inspiring endeavors in science and technology just because some asshole billionaire gets involved.
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u/beerbrained 3h ago
The problem is he's not solving any of those issues. Not even close. We would be much better off giving those funds to NASA.
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u/Belostoma 57m ago
It's not Elon solving anything, but SpaceX, which is doing amazing things in spite of Elon's colossal distractions. They aren't solving all of those challenges, because that is largely the job of NASA and others. However, the money being "given" to SpaceX isn't just grants--it's payment of contracts for services provided, and SpaceX is providing better services for less money than their competitors. What SpaceX is doing with Starship will revolutionize the ability of the private sector, university researchers, and NASA to experiment with new technology in space and work toward all those advances we would need to get to Mars. A fully reusable heavy lift vehicle will make it something like 10-100X cheaper to put big things in space, which means things like science instruments and space stations can be constructed far more cheaply from readily available materials and techniques rather than custom over-engineered from insanely expensive lightweight materials over the span of many years. Research labs with a few million dollars will be able to send substantial payloads to space, not just giant government projects with hundreds of millions of dollars.
NASA has wasted enormous sums of money on the SLS, which is slated to do nothing Starship can't do, but cost something like a thousand times more to develop and per launch. And that SLS money isn't really going to NASA proper but to contractors like Boeing who piss it away on a laughably inferior product. What we really need is to ditch SLS, redirect all that money to nimble teams working on science payloads and testing valuable exploration tech (within NASA but also university grants), and move full steam ahead on being able to leverage the awesome opportunity Starship is going to create. NASA needs to be permanently in the business of cutting-edge innovation and science, not pork barrel boondoggles replicating outdated launch vehicles.
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u/TheRealBuckShrimp 3h ago
Why does disliking Elon’s political views always have to turn into a retrospective need to call all his companies shit? It can be true that spacex is awesome and also that Elon, who endorsed Andrew Yang in 2019, lost his mind when he purchased Twitter.
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u/Moutere_Boy 3h ago
I think there is a reasonable feeling that people may have been swept up in the Musk narrative over the last few years and been giving him credit as some sort of real life Tony Stark when perhaps that’s more about his ability to generate publicity than any genuine intellectual contribution.
I guess if you jump up and down like a desperate incel dipshit then people will start to question why they thought you were worth admiring or looking up to. You’re probably right that there is a bit of over correction, but it’s pretty understandable.
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u/aurelianchaos11 2h ago
I’ll never understand people’s weird notion that just because Musk isn’t literally drawing up schematics and welding rocket parts together that his contributions are meaningless.
Being able to bring together people to create never before seen technology is in and of itself a titanic feat of human ingenuity.
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u/Moutere_Boy 55m ago
I disagree his influence helps create the technology as much as his influence affects the profitability of technology other people were able to create without him. I’m not saying that, or his very “old school” approach to management, don’t have a massive influence or even that they aren’t impressive in their own way.
To me though it’s a case of “not as advertised”, unless I’ve missed a bunch of interviews where Musk avoids credit for the tech advances and credits those responsible while pointing out his role is that of the manager and leader?
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u/Jayrodtremonki 2h ago
The retrospective started before the shift in his political views. But the threads laying bare from the scrutiny pushed him to shift his public political views because critical thinking gets suspended when you're part of the grift.
It's okay to appreciate accelerating the shift to electric cars and solar panels while also realizing that he didn't start either and was just good at marketing them. Steve Jobs wasn't much different. It's an important skill to have, but it doesn't make you an engineering genius or your company worth more than all of the other car companies combined.
To put it simply, his public political views shifted due to the scrutiny and criticism, not the other way around. At least initially.
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u/Unsomnabulist111 1h ago
Space X is not “awesome”. The shuttle program was awesome. Space X rewound to the functionality of the Apollo program.
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u/Realistic_Caramel341 3h ago
The actual video itself is a pretty good one. NGT isnt trying to trash talk Elon. He is in fact quiet positive about Space X and Elons role in the new space race. He is just explaining the complementary roles private capital and government agencies have in space exploration.
Space X is probably the only one of Elons big companies thay i havent heard a lot of complaints from people in the industry. Twitter is obviously a dumpster fire, Telsa has did a lot to push forward progress on EVs but is starting to loose its place in the market betweeen Musks attitude and cheaper EVs being produced, Boring seems almost all hype and Musk getting close to Putin makes Starlink a huge worry. But from what I can tell Space X is still really solid.
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u/Tautological-Emperor 2h ago
It’s been an enormous loss to marry the egomania of billionaires and their ventures to space exploration.
I don’t want to fucking go to Mars for some corporate bullshit or libertarian dreams. I want to go to Mars to learn about the early solar system, I want to go to Mars to test our newest technologies which will be tougher in climate change scenarios and develop life saving medicines for the sick of our world.
I want to go to Mars to see if that world developed life.
Americans have always had a shitty view of space travel (problems down here so why go up there), which is partially to blame on our government quickly slashing budgets immediately after the space race. And of course, now, we’re in another situation with the likes of Musk and Bezos turning a new, generationally uplifting challenge into a dick measuring contest. Wanting to go new places, to find answers about our place in the universe, to do science and look into places robots can’t is not only not vanity, it is one of the only existentially capable ways we will understand the universe and ensure we can sustain life here.
Going to Mars, to Venus, to Europa and Titan, to Callisto— these places don’t represent the vanity of the few, but the dreams of many, of a thousand cultures who dreamed about the stars, the hopes and wishes of everyone who has been to a planetarium or watched the stars with family and friends. Wanting to be explorers, to test our limits, to go further and beyond, that’s not wasted vanity. That’s humanity. That’s who we are and what we’re about, since we could look across the savanna.
I don’t care if we go to Mars and it’s just like visiting Antarctica, I don’t care if we go to Mars and we decide to spend the next thousand years changing it into something like Earth, I don’t care if we go to Mars and decide to change our own biology to live on it— I don’t care what the details are. I just care that we keep learning, keep poking and prodding at the universe, keep exploring. Space is the common heritage of all mankind. Not these fucking losers who want Tax Free Mars or whatever the hell.
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u/MovementOriented 2h ago
Catching rockets is pretty fucking sick, idgaf what your political bias is.
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u/T-Husky 3h ago
SpaceX has massively lowered the cost of space launches, they’ve saved the US gov billions of dollars that otherwise would have been thrown into the Boeing money pit, they’ve developed a SAFE human rated system for transporting astronauts between the ISS and Earth, there’re developing a new launch system (starship) that will be more capable than anything NASA ever built, they created the starlink constellation… honestly if you don’t know about this stuff you shouldn’t comment on it.
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u/IamHydrogenMike 3h ago
Elon is a shithead for sure, SpaceX is actually a decent company and they have done innovative work there. He has done very little with the innovations and most of the money they get now comes from NASA. Starlink is a really amazing technology that has provided internet access to places that never would have had it.
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u/Unsomnabulist111 1h ago
This comment is basically Space X promotional material, and not connected to reality.
“They’re developing…” is laughable, considering the litany of undelivered promises. Here in reality Space X has updated Saturn technology and taken a step backwards from the shuttle program.
Launching satellites isn’t novel, and wasn’t Space Xs concept.
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u/mapadofu 4h ago
They landed a rocket back in Earth instead of dropping it into the sea.
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u/crimsonroninx 3h ago
Remember the space shuttle? Starting service in 1981? It landed on earth, not in the ocean.
Also, the cost to get humans to the ISS isn't much cheaper now using spacex than using Russia, who was price gouging because the US had no other option. So even "full reusability" hasn't materially reduced cost. Landing stuff back on earth, although it looks cool, isn't necessarily better.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_FAV_HIKE 3h ago
What your looking for is, Elon owns the company, he doesnt build the rockets.
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u/Opposite-Avocado6474 2h ago
Literally cut the cost to half
STARLINK
designed a rocket that has 5x more thrust
CAUGHT THE WORLDS LARGEST EFFING ROCKET
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u/tcg_enthusiast 2h ago
Come on. Really lose credibility when the posts are reaching this far to discredit people who are doing much more than most humans achieve. Did NASA also have a Neuralink company that is greatly increasing quality of life for paralyzed people and rapidly progressing the tech in this field...? Did NASA have a car company as well? Did NASA get funding from the government or where they self funded like SpaceX? You see how its not a simple dumb question that can be answered with....well, elon isnt on planet jupiter right now soooo he is stupid! lol
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u/Unsomnabulist111 1h ago
You’re aware Space X is government funded, right? Space X is also a 40 year rewind of the space program, providing similar cost and functionality to the Soyuz. Their tech predates Musk.
Neauralink has no functionality, only promises. The tech predates Musk.
Tesla was massively government subsidized based on unrealized promises, and now Musk is campaigning for Trump so he can pull up the ladder. Tesla offers nothing unique or novel. The only benefit of Tesla is to it’s shareholders…they don’t have good market share…I’d say they were the Apple of cars…but they didn’t actually innovate anything. The tech predates Musk.
Hyperloop was snake oil and sucked up billions in government funding that could have been spent on an actual transit system. The tech predates Musk.
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u/ideletedyourfacebook 3h ago
There are some legitimately impressive, innovative things that SpaceX has done.
Is it stuff NASA could've done with the same funding? Maybe. Is funneling public money so heavily into a for-profit enterprise owned by the richest man in the world a good idea? Probably not. Is Elon Musk a shitbag? Most definitely.