Musk is the living proof that you can have "good intentions" and still miss the mark. It doesn't mean you will reach the shore even if your boat is well-oriented.
Elon Musk: Tech Genius! Green Warrior! Biz King! Good Oligarch?
- Thread starter MichaelM
- Start date
axj
The Living Force
Is there something inherently wrong with it though, if those who want to do it, do it? Most billionaires spend their money on superyachts and palaces - so Musk following his dream, however misguided his reasons may be, is still inspiring.
Russians never succeeded to build a functioning Moon rocket (similar in size to the Apollo rockets or the Starship). As to NASA, they spent $50 billion to develop their new SLS rocket and Orion capsule between 2006 and the first test launch in 2022. And none of it is reusable.
SpaceX spent $3 billion from 2014 up until May 2023 for the Starship rocket development and are currently spending about $2 billion a year in development costs (Source). So a total of about $10 billion at most to have an already flying rocket that can become reusable.
Overall, that is 5 times cheaper than a comparable current project from NASA. The actual flight costs for both rockets are also no comparison, since NASA will just throw away every rocket after launch, while SpaceX plans to use them many times.
There is a lot to criticize about Musk (eg. his hairbrained brain-chip idea), but bringing down the costs of spaceflight is not one of those things, in my opinion.
Jim Daniels
Jedi
You can't know that because the data is not available.
All we have to judge is propaganda.
Many decades ago I invested a thousand hours of training to get an MPA in specializing in Budgeting from a world-class University. It didn't take long for me to realize this career path would wind up with me eating a pistol, so I quit.
The only way we could determine the cost effectiveness of Space X is to use Generally Accepted Accounting Principles to perform a full financial audit of that corporation.
The financial data necessary to do that is Secret, hidden inside the Deep State's "National Security" black box. We will never see it.
Brewer
Jedi Council Member
Stiff, puffy suits, to be expected, cannot be seen in the few images of them testing them in what looks like a high altitude chamber. In keeping with an international tradition that began in the mid 60's there's no footage of them going through their paces in a vacuum chamber. There was no suited up pool or zero G plane containing capsule mock ups for training, they just dangled in harnesses to simulate zero G, in Levi's. Was budget a constraint? They did just about everything else; flying in the only civilian owned MiG-29 in the world; hiking snow covered volcanoes; scuba and sky diving!
No video of them dressing up or down. How do they gear up in that cramped capsule?
No stars, not one but down on Earth there's an abundance, even with foreground illumination. Same happened with Artemis, most cellphones readily record stars, haven't seen one.
Oh the hair! Why?!?! Watch at 3:10 as the blonde flicks her hair up with hand, it falls down again and resumes its original position except for that strand that adheres to her left shoulder.
Here's her hair on the parabolic zero-G jet versus Polaris.
Looks like there's a ton of product radiating from that hairline!
Some sped up hair on the ISS compared to the vomit comet.
At least they're not wearing the silly bling so often seen on the ISS.
No video of them dressing up or down. How do they gear up in that cramped capsule?
No stars, not one but down on Earth there's an abundance, even with foreground illumination. Same happened with Artemis, most cellphones readily record stars, haven't seen one.
Oh the hair! Why?!?! Watch at 3:10 as the blonde flicks her hair up with hand, it falls down again and resumes its original position except for that strand that adheres to her left shoulder.
Here's her hair on the parabolic zero-G jet versus Polaris.
Looks like there's a ton of product radiating from that hairline!
Some sped up hair on the ISS compared to the vomit comet.
At least they're not wearing the silly bling so often seen on the ISS.
axj
The Living Force
Then why are you almost certain that SpaceX spent 5x more than NASA on a similar project? What is this based on?
I am not sure what point you are trying to make - that it was fake footage? I am sceptical of such claims because much of it seems to come from the flat earth psyop. What is certain though is that NASA and others censor their footage of ruins on other planets.
This is an intelligent move on Elon's behalf, as the city of the Bay has lost all sense of morality, law, and order.
Wandering Star
The Living Force
axj
The Living Force
I don't see anything stupid about creating reusable rockets that land - something that even NASA, Russia or China are unable to achieve.
Unless that technology becomes available to humanity at large, we cannot use it obviously.
If someone follows their dream of going to another planet, that is their free will decision. Whether they are "going to" suffer and die, you don't know either.
Wandering Star
The Living Force
That's true, and more and more people are taking part in risky sports.
Many are seriously injured or killed, and it is their free will of course.
The owner of the company will watch it comfortably on a television screen.
Mainwhile in Europe 2030 agenda continue...
You have nothing and you will be happy!
Jim Daniels
Jedi
It is based upon my decades of experience working for Private Contractors in the health care and information technology industries.
I have personally witnessed financial obscenities so evil you wouldn't believe them unless you saw them with your own eyes.
Egregious Taxpayer fleecing is not the Exception. It is the Rule.
People don't know this because American Media is the best propaganda and brainwashing machine on this planet.
axj
The Living Force
Sure, but that actually applies to NASA much more than to SpaceX. They have some contracts with NASA for supply launches to the ISS and such, but that's about it.
So why do you assume that SpaceX is able to do much more taxpayer fleecing than an agency that is fully financed by taxpayer money? That makes no sense at all.
Brewer
Jedi Council Member
Just more theatre borrowed from the ISS. Musical ensembles, ridiculous hair, stuffed toys, lame science experiment demonstrations, mom calls home and no stars. At least they spared us the silly bling and gorilla suits, next trip perhaps. Maybe partially genuine but why no stars? I can video stars with my cheap android but when they venture outside the capsule, nothing, are they in space or a psychomanteum? Cameras are so good these days it appears they go to the trouble of blacking them out!
The suits, I've posted a few times on this thread about them regarding the lack of vacuum chamber testing footage over the decades. SpaceX is no exception. Here's a neutral buoyancy pool where they train astronauts in zero G ops. There's numerous assistants and cameras galore, been operating for decades, video is readily available and look at that control room! Twenty one screens!
There'd be a similar set up for vacuum chambers but what do we see? A few stills of deflated suits in what looks like a high altitude chamber and lots of close ups of the intrepid ones! We don't even get to see the SpaceX suits tested in a pool or a parabolic plane because they didn't happen!
I doubt NASA gets to other planets let alone photos ancient ruins., can't even get to LEO with humans on board!
Jim Daniels
Jedi
No assumption.
It's a fact that government agencies can be subjected to far more effective auditing and monitoring than corporations can be.
Plus, it is more difficult for government agencies to brain-wash the Public with propaganda than it is for Wall Street military contractors like Microsoft, Google, and X.
axj
The Living Force
By now, the spending of government agencies is as much a black box as that of corporations. None of the US government spending is open to the public since 2019 (FASAB 56). They can present whatever numbers they want and it cannot be verified by anyone.
And even in the decades before it, tens of trillions in US government spending is unaccounted for, as Catherine Austin-Fitts and others have documented. A popular theory is that a lot of it went into the secret space program (antigravity technology) and the building of underground bases.
