[HN Gopher] Crew-9 Returns to Earth
___________________________________________________________________
Crew-9 Returns to Earth
Author : saikatsg
Score : 416 points
Date : 2025-03-19 05:32 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.spacex.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.spacex.com)
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| I remember some discourse saying they were not "trapped" in space
| (as in physically unable to get to earth safely), they just
| didn't want there to be only one american crew member on the ISS,
| or something along those lines. Is anyone on the ISS now, or did
| they all come home?
| magicalist wrote:
| > _Is anyone on the ISS now_
|
| Yes, four astronauts arrived on Saturday on Crew 10 and are
| there now.
|
| edit: They came down on the scheduled Crew 9 craft, which, as
| the linked caption says, has been docked and waiting at the
| space station since September.
| bravoetch wrote:
| Looks like crew 10 is comprised of four astronauts. Two from
| the US, one from Japan, and one from Russia.
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| It's less about how many Americans are on the ISS and more
| about not disturbing the mission schedule (too much), among
| cost considerations.
| somenameforme wrote:
| They were scheduled to stay there for 8 days and had Boeing's
| vessel proven flight worthy, they would have returned after 8
| days. The messaging beyond that was just political in nature.
| They could have been rescued, but were left on the station
| until after the election. The situation resulted in significant
| issues for the next crewing [1] leading to some interesting
| things like the first time a Russian cosmonaut was in control
| of an American spacecraft, let alone a rookie cosmonaut with
| only basic training on the Dragon.
|
| It also led to some interesting improvisations. NASA has a
| requirement that there be a 'lifeboat' on the ISS for all crew
| in case of an emergency, but because of the Boeing crew (and
| the lack of a corresponding vessel), NASA approved a new
| 'configuration' of the Dragon where up to 3 people could strap
| themselves to the floor of it, where cargo would normally go,
| in case of the need of a mass escape from the ISS. [2]
|
| As another fun aside, when the Starliner was returning
| [autonomously] to Earth it experienced two more errors,
| unrelated to the ones that left the astronauts stranded on the
| ISS in the first place. What a vessel.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-9
|
| [2] -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Crew_Flight_Test#Uncrew...
| magicalist wrote:
| > _They could have been rescued, but were left on the station
| until after the election_
|
| This continues to be silly. There were changes to Crew 9,
| _last summer_ , when it was decided that it would be
| logistically easier for two (instead of four) astronauts to
| go up and the two Boeing crew would come down with them on
| the Crew 9 craft in February/March 2025 (that would be now).
| This has always been the plan, the only politics being
| injected here are people insisting on grandstanding and
| making drama where there is none.
|
| You can disagree with the decision (though, again, why), but
| it was a decision. There was no dereliction of duty, no
| stranding of astronauts since September, and this was not
| some high-stakes rescue.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| I would like to see the qualifications of the people who
| disagree with that decision before I waste time listening
| to them.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's bizarre that anyone thinks the emergency situation
| continued after the launch of Crew 9 with 2 empty seats for
| their return.
|
| It's a simple, parsimonious explanation for everything that
| has happened since. Nonetheless, we apparently have to talk
| about it.
|
| I wonder how many people expressing strong opinions don't
| even understand that there were intentionally empty seats.
| mavhc wrote:
| Boeing have forgotten how to make spaceships, and airplanes
| russdill wrote:
| I remember this Elon Musk guy who was spending hundreds of
| millions of dollars to get Trump elected. I hear he's
| involved in space somehow, imagine if he found out about this
| and was able to shame the Biden admin with this before the
| election. He would have gone absolutely wild with it.
| rob74 wrote:
| There has to be someone on the ISS at all times - unless you
| want to abandon and decommission it, that is, but nobody
| (except Elon Musk) is suggesting to do that at this point in
| time...
| throwaway73750 wrote:
| >unless you want to abandon and decommission it, that is, but
| nobody (except Elon Musk) is suggesting to do that at this
| point in time...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39474840 NASA will
| retire the ISS soon (npr.org) Feb 22, 2024
| rob74 wrote:
| In this case, "soon" means 2030, which is the planned
| "retirement" date. Musk suggests to do it even sooner, in
| two year's time (that would be 2027).
| nailer wrote:
| That's not a huge difference.
| generj wrote:
| It's a massive difference to SpaceX who were awarded the
| de-orbit contract and would need a massive amount of
| extra funding to suddenly bring that project's timeline
| forward three years.
|
| Also a large difference to all of NASA's international
| partners who might lose out on astronaut slots,
| scientists with experiments that won't be ran, dozens of
| contractor companies supporting ISS, etc.
| lupusreal wrote:
| NASA awarded the deorbit contract to SpaceX during the Biden
| administration. The ISS is coming down whether you like it or
| not.
|
| The more you knew about this, the more you'd be okay with it.
| The station was obsolete before it was even built. NASA likes
| to justify the space station as a laboratory studying the
| effects of longterm space flight on humans; the results were
| in decades ago: it fucks people up. Human bodies begin to
| deteriorate in microgravity, even one year isn't healthy and
| there's nothing we can do about it. No exercise regime can
| fix it, the only possible solution is a station which spins.
| This was known _before the ISS was built_ , but they didn't
| build a spin station. They built Mir 2, using the Soviet
| DOS-8 module. Mir 1 had the DOS-7 module, the previous
| modules were the Salyut stations. When the Soviets got tooled
| up to build something they liked to keep building it forever,
| and that's what happened here. The Salyut stations came from
| a period in time when space stations actually had a rational
| purpose; being a platform for humans to take reconnaissance
| photos of other countries. This role was quickly made
| obsolete by recon satellites, but the Soviets were tooled up
| to build them so they kept at it, while the equivalent
| systems in America were canceled. If you're familiar with
| Robert Crippen, the computer specialist and nominal pilot of
| STS-1, you'll know that he was originally training for
| operation with the Manned Orbital Laboratory before joining
| NASA. That was America's Soyuz. It was canceled when
| satellites proved their capabilities. The Soviets started
| using satellites but kept their station program anyway, due
| to the wonderful efficiencies of their system.
|
| NASA tried to use space stations as a justification for
| continuing Apollo levels of funding (Skylab) but that didn't
| work out for them and American apace station activities ended
| there. Some Americans were later sent to Mir and found it to
| be in a horrific state, a veritable death trap that got lucky
| on numerous occasions.
|
| The only reason America got involved with Mir 2,
| rechristening it as the ISS, is because America wanted to
| prop up the Russian space industry to prevent total collapse
| and a subsequent diaspora of talent to less friendly nations.
| It is at least not quite as dangerous as Mir 1, but it's
| still a dead end technology that serves no genuine scientific
| purpose, with a political justification which is now just as
| obsolete.
|
| But the science experiments! How could I have forgotten
| something so important. All kinds of very important
| pharmaceutical science or something, I am told. So important,
| that when companies fielding proposals for replacement
| stations go looking for customers, they come up empty. NASA
| wants commercial partners for the next station but the whole
| thing is a slowly unfolding boondoggle.
|
| Edit to add: Starship isn't going to Mars. Its a satellite
| launcher surrounded by aspirational propaganda to keep young
| engineers motivated. And Lunar Gateway, originally the "Deep
| Space Gateway" before Artemis came up, is meant to exist only
| to give ISS mission control staff new jobs when the ISS is
| gone. Soviet style pork.
| rob74 wrote:
| Well, okay, the same arguments can be used to question why
| we need (crewed) space exploration at all. It's extremely
| expensive, it doesn't really bring any new scientific data.
| We've been to the Moon already, and what there is still to
| know about it can also be learned with robotic probes. Same
| goes for mining. Exploring Mars can also be done very well
| without involving humans. Colonization, you say? Maybe fix
| our problems on Earth first before "infecting" other
| planets with our species?
| lupusreal wrote:
| See my edit, Mars colonization isn't happening. And if
| NASA were serious about developing the future of human
| spaceflight they would be developing spin Hans, not
| trying to build the same bullshit over and over again.
| kubb wrote:
| I'm trapped in a 9 to 5, will the Good President help me?
| rbanffy wrote:
| If I were involved in naming them, I'd add a "from Outer Space"
| just this time.
| michelsedgh wrote:
| They should make a movie about this, it was all fun we were going
| to space for 8 days and stayed for 9 MONTHS STRANDED NO WAY BACK
| HOME. i felt so bad for them honestly. Glad they're safe and home
| now.
| kelseydh wrote:
| Feels more like getting an extended vacation getting to do the
| coolest thing you can do as a human.
| jader201 wrote:
| I'm not sure it's considered a vacation if you didn't plan on
| staying 34x the number of days you had originally planned, or
| have a choice to leave.
|
| Especially when you're separated from your family and other
| loved ones.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| What is this about "planning" stuff? They trained and
| volunteered as astronauts/cosmonauts, and that still
| typically entails a military career as well, and military
| families indeed suffer the absence of loved ones, but that
| is always part of the collective sacrifice that makes
| America, well, great... and astronauts are public figures,
| celebrities, smiling for the camera and making prepared
| statements at each milestone, and that glory they earned
| this for this crew was simply following orders and being
| trained/prepared for all eventualities while the rocket
| scientists worked out the logistics.
|
| And if you follow JPL robotic missions that far outlast
| their mission objectives and keep going like Energizer
| Bunnies, then is it not sort of amazing that the astronauts
| really suffered no privations or hardships, in terms of
| food/shelter/clothing/hygiene, by extending their missions
| and doing useful things up there?
|
| People watch "The Martian" and "Lost in Space" and they
| can't seem to grasp the careful pre-planning, incident
| response, resource allocation, and orcestration that goes
| into everything that's done by space programs.
|
| Space missions include sprawling, branching flow-charts of
| every contingency they imagined, and they inform the press
| of mission objectives and a proposed timeline, and then
| life happens and when glitches come up, they roll with them
| because they prepared for them. Apollo 13, for example, is
| categorically different than a space habitation in Earth
| orbit; as a lone vehicle with limited resources and an
| isolated path, that Apollo mission ran out of planned
| contingencies to the point of improvising so many things
| and returning to fundamentals, preserving human life.
|
| It's the peril of human life that definitely adds drama for
| us, and the ISS being influenced by geopolitics is
| categorically different than the nationalist glories of
| Mercury-Gemini-Apollo vs. the Soviets. But with ISS in
| Earth orbit, receiving regular resupply missions, being a
| habitable outpost, it's far different than sending up a
| vehicle like the Space Shuttle while everyone speculates
| whether another Saturn V could be constructed in time to
| rescue the crew because tiles fell off their heat shield.
|
| Speaking of Saturn, I've been peering into Greek/Roman
| mythology, and learning what Cronus/Saturn did with his
| children and how Aphrodite/Venus was born, gives new
| insight into super heavy-lift launch vehicles named after
| the deity.
| ranguna wrote:
| Personally I don't think that's good enough
| justification. Being stuck in space doesn't make any
| country look good, if anything, it makes them look bad
| for their errors.
|
| But the only people that can actually say this was bad or
| good are the astronauts themselves, only they know how
| much they love their work to turn the word "stranded"
| into something else positive.
| troupo wrote:
| > Being stuck in space doesn't make any country look good
|
| They were not stuck in space
|
| > But the only people that can actually say this was bad
| or good are the astronauts themselves
|
| Multiple people that actually ran this mission have said
| multiple times that they were not stuck, and explained
| all the reasons for the extension. And yet you keep
| ignoring everything except the narrative of "stuck" and
| "stranded".
| blitzar wrote:
| When you are strapping to a rocket the plan is that you
| explode into lots of little pieces. Getting there and back
| alive is a bonus.
| ulfw wrote:
| Erm they didn't plan to go on some 8 days business trip for
| some work project.
|
| This is their life and profession. The job is extremely
| difficult, dangerous and mega mega expensive. Hence they
| don't get to do it as much as they love. Now they did.
| baq wrote:
| They'll spend their 'working time' getting back to being a
| functional human. Not exactly a good deal if you ask me.
| sterlind wrote:
| oh I don't know, grueling rehab and moderate health
| consequences in exchange for getting to spend nine months
| in space seems like it'd be a deal many would take.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Destroying your body so cool bro bwahaha
|
| "Another astronaut comments on what the Crew-9 people can
| expect: "The returning astronauts will "struggle to walk, get
| dizzy easily, and have bad eyesight", because the "build-up
| of fluid changes the shape of their eyeballs, and weakens
| their vision". They may need glasses for the rest of their
| lives.""
| kelseydh wrote:
| They knew these risks when they signed up, and the queue of
| people dreaming to be astronauts despite these risks is
| enormous. Some crew members coming back on this mission had
| gone multiple times.
| croes wrote:
| They were not stranded with no way back home
| adastra22 wrote:
| And loved every minute of being up there. They were promised
| 8 days in space and got 8 months doing awesome science on the
| ISS. They're astronauts; they live for this stuff.
| rob74 wrote:
| ...especially since both are at an age where this will
| probably be their last mission.
| ranguna wrote:
| Did someone ask them to really know they liked the
| unplanned stay or are we all just making things up?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They did say this on more than one interview.
|
| It is, to be fair, part of their job to put on a happy
| face.
| croes wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/13/science/boeing-starliner-
| astr...
| adastra22 wrote:
| Repeatedly, in like every interview they've given.
| cameldrv wrote:
| They had a way back home if they needed to. They just didn't
| have a ride up for their replacements for a few months, so they
| asked them to stay longer to keep the ISS mission going.
|
| Becoming a NASA astronaut is extremely hard. You have to check
| a ridiculous number of boxes, and you have to really want it. I
| think anyone who goes through this process would prefer a 6
| month stay on the space station over a 2 week stay on the space
| station, and the 6 month stay is what they got.
|
| NASA kept them safe and fed, I really don't think you can
| reasonably knock them from this perspective.
| ranguna wrote:
| I think the only people who can say they'd prefer an
| unexpected 9 month stay vs a planned 2 week stay are the ones
| that were "asked" to stay, and no one else.
|
| Feels like they've been put between a wall and a sword:
| either they abandon the ISS or come back home. I don't know
| how I'd feel about that.
| drysine wrote:
| >NO WAY BACK HOME
|
| There is always a way home from the ISS. There are always
| enough spacecraft, including Soyuz, docked to ISS to save the
| cosmonauts in case of emergency.
| esskay wrote:
| Nobody was stranded. It's amazing how effective lying to people
| has become.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| They weren't stranded, they just had no way of going home
| which was totally and completely planned for.
| TOMDM wrote:
| But they did have a way of going home, but chose not to
| take it.
| aequitas wrote:
| There is this one movie but it's set on Mars instead (The
| Martian). And I think the series For all Mankind also had an
| episode with this kind of plot.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Most of season 2 was about being stranded on the moon
| (because of technology failures caused by costcutting)
| justin66 wrote:
| The TV show was called _Gilligan 's Island._
| ta1243 wrote:
| THIS IS NOT TRUE
|
| See, we can all put stuff in capitals. Doesn't make it true.
|
| Even if you defined "stranded" as being "unable to use the
| Starliner", then they weren't stranded in September. They could
| have decided to get in the ship and go home. Not like there's
| some political officers on board ready to stop them.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I'm going ahead and deciding that astronaut is no longer the
| awesome job I thought it was when I was younger. I'm good on
| that.
| OccamsMirror wrote:
| You know in your heart that it still is.
| bdangubic wrote:
| coolest thing you can do as human and nothing comes even
| remotely close
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| maybe not on your lifetime but at the speed of current
| progress, maybe your son or grandchildren can become space
| settler to terraform mars in the next generation (that
| literally coolest thing ever)
| ohgr wrote:
| We are more likely end up with moon nazis at this rate.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Or the Mars envisioned in Total Recall
| rob74 wrote:
| Becoming a space settler on Mars: cool
|
| Contributing to bringing Earth to a state where it will have
| to be "terraformed" itself: not so cool
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| earth is cool but people are not
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| It's the coolest thing, but it will be frontier work. It
| won't be a walk in the park, almost certainly neither fun nor
| safe, and possibly a one-way ticket for a long time. (Even
| without the "corp-owned slave town" dystopia scenario that's
| also a possibility.)
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| "corp-owned slave town"
|
| in space human slave is literally most expensive labor you
| can choose, automatons is the way
| bravetraveler wrote:
| Man is the best computer we can put aboard a
| spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass produced
| with unskilled labor. - Werner von Braun
|
| Thanks to delayed effects of radiation and such, _people_
| are the automatons. Extremely commodity and robust.
| Humanity, _(or to be fair, safety)_ in my work is cooler,
| actually. Nothing beats my bed!
|
| The worst political nonsense I get caught in means a
| phone call. Not an extended stay with potential life-
| lasting or shortening effects. Rad is different for
| everyone :)
|
| Captain Paperclip would have encouraged the negative
| path, yes.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| oh yes lets send a spaceship that full of leading edge
| tech with unskilled human labor, sounds about right
|
| maybe you must see real world first, drinkable water and
| plant is literally of the most rare thing in the universe
| surpassing mineral and metal, one of the most abundant
| things in space
| bravetraveler wrote:
| The unskilled labor would be the parents, but I can tell
| the metaphor is lost. Not sure why I bother explaining
| that.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| I perfectly understand the metaphor but machine already
| replace human in factory on earth, why do you think human
| can work in the 10x times worse condition in space???
|
| also if you born poor in earth, many people would take a
| chance to do space industry at all in the future despite
| the risk
| bravetraveler wrote:
| We simply have different outlooks. I'm not going to argue
| it. I see exploitation _(in a negative sense)_ where you
| 're more optimistic. I truly hope you're right!
|
| Before we had machines to put in our factories, we had
| hordes of dead laborers. Regulations are written in
| blood. Then we had company towns and truly brutal police
| enforcement.
|
| Why will humans work there? Partly for the reason you
| gave: poverty. That makes them particularly expendable,
| offering themselves to the 'chance' as you say.
|
| _edit:_ My bias is obvious, I work in SRE - not
| development. I don 't create things, I deal with the
| fallout of creation. It's a lot like that.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| wdym exploitation, space company would not having a hard
| time to pay their employee the same reason oil company do
|
| also human is expensive, if fleet of human slave is cheap
| then we outsource all of our work to china and india. but
| that don't happen we build a trillion dollar industry (AI
| and robotic) to make all of that
| bravetraveler wrote:
| When _I_ look at the power dynamics between employee _[on
| a spaceship]_ and an employer, pay isn 't the utmost
| concern. Not even the trendy replacement, scrip. Nay,
| performance reviews and how it might relate to oxygen
| availability.
|
| I don't see a collaborative trip through the cosmos, I
| see a very unhealthy relationship with danger to boot
|
| This may be all the more reason for robots, but again:
| humans take no engineering. Just a few minutes and a lot
| of tries _(heh, sex joke)_. They 'll literally pay for
| themselves.
|
| RE: outsourcing, I don't know what you mean/where you
| are. That's exactly what's been happening, here.
| Consistently. For decades. Many ventures can happen.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| its more easier to setup 1 billions self replicating
| robot in space than setups 1 billions human living
| conditions infrastructure because back to square one
| turns out water and plant is more rare than metal in
| space
|
| also human is fragile, weak, costly, too long to make it
| productive. it takes 15+ year for human to be any useful
| at all (and not counting experience)
|
| do you think these space corp would just sit 15+ year
| revenue of upkeep going to waste only the next day human
| employee die because some dust near light speed particle
| hit the station???
|
| nooo, slavery human space is not practical because is not
| cost effective economy wise
| adastra22 wrote:
| I don't understand this take? They got to spend the better part
| of a year doing what they love. Sounds pretty kick-ass to me.
| rdtsc wrote:
| We'll see if they fly again or they are done with space for
| good. There is no way they'll publicly complain or
| acknowledge issues. as it will look unprofessional, but
| actions will tell.
| adastra22 wrote:
| This was likely their last mission to start with. They're
| already past prime and nearing retirement (of official
| astronaut duties, at least).
| rdtsc wrote:
| I guess until they retire and leave NASA we may never
| know. Otherwise it would be quite unprofessional of them
| to criticize their time there or air out the dirty
| laundry.
|
| The point is, they are expected to say they enjoyed every
| minute of it in front of the camera. And if they really
| didn't we may not hear about it.
| russdill wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Pettit
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Wasn't this (or rather, the original short mission)
| expected to likely be the last mission for them anyways,
| due to age?
|
| I really hope they'll at some point clearly say either
| "well, of course we missed our families, but really,
| getting such an opportunity was AWESOME and Boeing's
| misfortune was a huge lucky event for us" or "Being up
| there is awesome, but quite honestly, having to do it
| unexpectedly really sucked".
|
| And I don't think that it is the slightest bit
| unprofessional to have feelings about where you spent a
| year of your life, or to talk about those feelings.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > And I don't think that it is the slightest bit
| unprofessional to have feelings about where you spent a
| year of your life, or to talk about those feelings.
|
| I think it's cultural. Astronauts I think are more
| disciplined and more professional on average than an
| average Joe. Even if they hated it they probably wouldn't
| mention it publicly. Maybe after they retire from NASA
| completely.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Conversely, I can't imagine them saying they were happy
| and lucky beyond their dreams, even if they felt that
| way, because "being in space is more awesome than having
| a life" would be a view too controversial to voice, and
| wouldn't be received well by most of society.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| >Astronauts I think are more disciplined and more
| professional on average than an average Joe.
|
| All astronauts are military service members. I'd expect
| nothing less.
| russdill wrote:
| Another member of Expedition 72 was 7 years Wilmore's
| senior.
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| I doubt they're happy about having to be up there that long.
| russdill wrote:
| How long exactly do you think NASA astronauts typically
| spend on the ISS?
| mullingitover wrote:
| I got over it when I learned about the crazy nausea from your
| inner ears giving your brain conflicting information. Couple
| that with your body nonstop wasting away in zero gravity, plus
| the radiation damage. It's like a never ending hangover, but
| worse.
| Animats wrote:
| Today, being a NASA astronaut is kind of a dud job. There are
| about 50 active astronauts at the moment, and not very many
| flights for them. Peak was around 150, in the Shuttle era. With
| 135 Shuttle flights, with up to eight people aboard, most of
| them got a chance to go up, usually more than once. Not today.
|
| Another astronaut comments on what the Crew-9 people can
| expect: "The returning astronauts will "struggle to walk, get
| dizzy easily, and have bad eyesight", because the "build-up of
| fluid changes the shape of their eyeballs, and weakens their
| vision". They may need glasses for the rest of their lives."
|
| Living without gravity seems to be harder on some than others.
| Valery Polyakov spent 435 days in space, longer than anyone
| else. He apparently didn't suffer much in the way of after-
| effects, had a good post-flight career, and died at age 80.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| Flights to Mars in about 5 years though! I can't imagine how
| amazing it would be to be one of the first geologists getting
| out on foot and exploring those canyons, mountains, lava
| tubes and caves...
| ta1243 wrote:
| Not without spin gravity. Imagine 5 years of weightlessness
| then having to get out on foot.
| pavon wrote:
| Travel time to Mars is 3-9 months depending on how fast
| you travel, probably still to early to know where a Space
| X Starship trip would fall in that range. The 5 years is
| referencing Musk's latest optimistic prediction for when
| the first manned flight would occur. Still, re-adapting
| to gravity on arrival will be an issue.
| timewizard wrote:
| > is 3-9 months depending on how fast you travel
|
| That particular launch window only occurs once every two
| years. The Earth and Mars rotate around the Sun at
| different rates. During some periods Mars is on the other
| side of the Sun and essentially unreachable with our
| current level of delta-v.
|
| > latest optimistic prediction
|
| Will that be before or after fully self driving cars? Or
| electric semis? That drive themselves in road trains?
| Will those astronauts have neuralink chips in their
| heads?
|
| > re-adapting to gravity on arrival will be an issue.
|
| It's 1/3 gravity. Then again, you're on a ship with no
| free return abort trajectory available, I'd worry more
| about medical emergencies, crew temperament, and actual
| crimes being committed.
| timerol wrote:
| There is no way we would consider a manned flight to Mars
| outside of the "once per two years" launch window. Anyone
| following potential manned flights to Mars counts the
| windows. See https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/commen
| ts/dtm5bc/mars_l... from 2019.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| Some astronauts are able to walk around in Earth gravity
| immediately after getting back, though with some
| difficulty. Valeri Polyakov walked out of his space
| capsule after his 2 year stint in the Russian space
| station. And then there's the fact that Mars has only
| half the gravity. I think gravity won't be a showstopper
| when arriving at Mars.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| 6 months of zero gravity and then Mars has half gravity.
| ISS astronauts who stay up there for a year+ have had it
| far worse.
| TomK32 wrote:
| You mean last year, according to this source (2017)
| https://youtu.be/tdUX3ypDVwI?t=2305
| iancmceachern wrote:
| The geologists needed for this are currently being fired
| and loosing their funding. Yes it would be cool, if we
| valued science, engineering and mutual progress as a
| soceity. We're rapidly going down the Total Recall / Biff
| Tanner timeline, so it won't be the fun version of Mars.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a
| fateful trip, That started from this tropic port
| Aboard a Boeing ship Two astronauts went up that day,
| They both were brave and true, The Starliner delivered
| them, To join ISS crew. ...for an eight day
| station tour. The testing on the Starliner,
| Was thoroughly performed. Although it probably was safe,
| The NASA team were warned. So the Starliner came home
| to Earth, Without its stalwart crew, The astronauts
| would stay in space, An extra month or two.
| ...an extra month or two. So join us here each week
| my friend, It's such a special place, With two
| (not!) stranded astronauts, Here in Gilligan's space!
| jansan wrote:
| Here is the original song (for those who are ignorant like me):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfSLuEj99d0
| karaokeyoga wrote:
| Related (vaguely):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43407014
| gcanyon wrote:
| Wow, nice find and highly coincidental!
| dotancohen wrote:
| Nice job, but come clean. Was this AI generated?
| gcanyon wrote:
| Nope! I thought about it, but I just started the first bit
| and kept going. If I had gotten stuck I would definitely have
| jumped to AI, but I didn't so here we are.
| gcanyon wrote:
| For comparison:
|
| "Write a set of alternative lyrics to the theme for
| Gilligan's Island based on the two astronauts that went up in
| the Boeing Starliner and were supposed to spend about 8 days
| in the ISS but ended up spending about 9 months. It's
| important to follow the meter and rhyme pattern."
|
| ChatGPT (emojis are the LLM's):
|
| Here's a set of alternative lyrics to the Gilligan's Island
| theme, capturing the Boeing Starliner astronauts'
| unexpectedly extended stay on the ISS:
|
| ---
|
| Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a
| fateful flight, That started from a launchpad base, And
| soared into the night.
|
| The crew was only set to stay For just a week or two, But
| Boeing's ship had other plans, And stretched it out to new!
|
| (And stretched it out to new!)
|
| The docking worked, they made it there, The mission seemed on
| track, But then they found some little leaks, And couldn't
| make it back!
|
| And couldn't make it back!
|
| The calendar kept flipping by, With patches, tests, and
| checks, While Houston said, "Just wait a bit," "We're working
| out the specs!"
|
| So here they stay on the orbiting lab, For months, not days
| but more! With coffee, jokes, and floating sleep, In zero-g
| galore!
|
| In zero-g galore!
|
| They'll one day ride the Starliner home, If Boeing gets it
| right, And finally end this long delay, From what was just a
| flight!
|
| (From what was just a flight!)
|
| ---
|
| This keeps the original tune and humor while capturing the
| unexpected (and slightly ridiculous) nature of their extended
| stay.
| gcanyon wrote:
| For comparison,
|
| "Write a set of alternative lyrics to the theme for
| Gilligan's Island based on the two astronauts that went up in
| the Boeing Starliner and were supposed to spend about 8 days
| in the ISS but ended up spending about 9 months. It's
| important to follow the meter and rhyme pattern."
|
| Claude:
|
| The Ballad of Starliner
|
| Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a
| fateful trip, That started from Cape Canaveral Aboard this
| spaceship.
|
| The crew was two brave astronauts, The mission just eight
| days long. Then several systems failed that day, The timeline
| was all wrong, the timeline was all wrong.
|
| The thrusters started leaking fuel, The schedule lost its
| way. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, They'd be
| lost in space today, they'd be lost in space today.
|
| They settled in the station then, For a much extended stay,
| With two astronauts, and some cosmonauts too, Research night
| and day, The engineers, Mission Control, NASA chiefs, And
| Boeing's team, all working hard, Here on Starliner Isle!
| gcanyon wrote:
| For comparison,
|
| "Write a set of alternative lyrics to the theme for
| Gilligan's Island based on the two astronauts that went up in
| the Boeing Starliner and were supposed to spend about 8 days
| in the ISS but ended up spending about 9 months. It's
| important to follow the meter and rhyme pattern."
|
| Gemma 3:
|
| Okay, here's a set of alternative lyrics to the Gilligan's
| Island theme song, tailored to the story of Butch Wilmore and
| Sunita Williams' extended stay aboard the International Space
| Station due to issues with the Boeing Starliner. I've tried
| to maintain the original song's meter and rhyme scheme as
| closely as possible.
|
| (Music: Same as the original Gilligan's Island theme)
|
| Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, Of two brave
| astronauts, set to sail-- To the ISS, a mission planned, For
| eight short days, a helping hand.
|
| (Chorus) Starliner launched, a hopeful flight, But problems
| arose, with all their might! Nine months they stayed, a
| cosmic spree, A longer journey than it should be!
|
| The capsule docked, all seemed so fine, But glitches
| appeared, a worrying sign. Repairs were needed, delays took
| hold, A story of patience, bravely told.
|
| (Chorus) Starliner launched, a hopeful flight, But problems
| arose, with all their might! Nine months they stayed, a
| cosmic spree, A longer journey than it should be!
|
| They orbited Earth, a watchful crew, Experiments done, and
| tasks anew. While ground control worked, with skill and
| grace, To bring them safely back to base.
|
| So listen close, and you will see, A space adventure, for you
| and me! A tale of resilience, strong and true, Wilmore and
| Williams, seeing it through!
|
| Notes on Choices & Challenges:
|
| Meter & Rhyme: The original song is very specific in its
| rhythm and rhyme. I've prioritized that above all else. This
| meant some compromises in the narrative detail. Narrative
| Focus: I focused on the core issue - the extended stay due to
| Starliner problems - and tried to convey a sense of the
| situation without getting bogged down in technical details.
| Tone: I aimed for the same lighthearted, slightly whimsical
| tone as the original. "Sail" vs. "Space": The original uses
| "sail," which is obviously nautical. I tried to make "flight"
| work as a parallel. Keeping it Concise: The original theme is
| very short. Fitting a complex story into that format is a
| challenge. I hope this captures the spirit of the situation
| while staying true to the iconic song! Let me know if you'd
| like any adjustments or further refinements.
| pmontra wrote:
| Thanks, I didn't know about
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan%27s_Planet or I didn't
| remember it. Maybe it never made it into my country.
| neo4llm wrote:
| This is a much better submission detailing the whole ordeal the
| astronauts went through:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43407821
| raverbashing wrote:
| The optics of this were really bad
|
| As much as people were saying they were not stranded (and
| honestly they weren't), having your mission jump from a few days
| to months is a bummer.
|
| Sure, for a carreer astronaut, that's a great experience. But
| still, well, if I was sent on a professional mission for 3 days
| and had to stay a couple of months I would be very annoyed, as
| cool as the mission was.
|
| Especially as it was due to (all the problems that were endlessly
| discussed already)
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| Many astronauts get only one chance ever to do this thing which
| they train for their whole lives. Getting 9 months instead of 8
| days seems like a huge deal.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yes, I do agree that looking at this angle is a great
| experience
| senectus1 wrote:
| This whole thing has made me very angry.
|
| they were not trapped or stranded... they were re-scheduled.
|
| This sort of shit happens a lot. the whole "stranded" wordage is
| being repeated by the MSM seemingly at the behest of the Trump
| administration and associated cronies.
| bamboozled wrote:
| How else do you make people like you if not to make up nonsense
| and claim to be the savior of everything?
|
| Being a savior is fine, just do it fucking quietly please.
| justlikereddit wrote:
| Weaponizing language is old news in politics. The US have been
| doing it since before I was born and so have everyone else.
| It's pretty much what politics is.
|
| If you find you're suddenly offended by the words of the clown
| class you're likely to have been massively partisan to the last
| in-charge circus-troupe
| exodust wrote:
| > _" they were re-scheduled"_
|
| You're over-correcting and understating. "Nothing to see here"
| is not how we describe 8 days turning into 9 months.
|
| Don't be angry about hype. Everyone has access to what the
| astronauts say themselves. In this case, their remarks have
| been ambiguous, probably because they don't want to be drawn
| into a shit-storm. They didn't want to be "victims" in any way,
| so they were not "stranded". But their Boeing shuttle did
| suffer problems, and that isn't nothing, nor is it a
| "scheduling issue".
|
| End of the day, it was great to see the parachutes open. Health
| complications can arise for astronauts stuck in space that
| long. Their return was overdue to the point of being concerning
| for most people. Fair?
| pveierland wrote:
| Eric Berger has a good summary on the narrative:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/can-nasa-remain-nonpar...
| pavlov wrote:
| Berger is an excellent journalist. He's very knowledgeable
| about space topics, has good sources, and has been extremely
| fair to Musk in the past.
|
| When he says it's a "throne of lies", a line has been crossed.
| chinathrow wrote:
| What line?
| n4r9 wrote:
| Exploiting and lying about the monumental efforts of a
| pioneering industry for cheap political points certainly
| feels like a line to me.
| nodoll wrote:
| That sure is a line that has never been crossed before.
| This is UNPRECEDENTED!
|
| Give me a freaking break.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Eh, the whole space race has its origins in a propaganda
| war with the USSR staffed by ex-Nazi engineers. It's not
| more deserving of sacred purity than anything else.
|
| On the other hand, the sheer lying about everything is
| exhaustive and corrosive to the public sphere.
|
| (also while dealing with the villain of the week we've
| forgotten about the previous villain responsible for this
| situation, Boeing)
| Y_Y wrote:
| > Eh, the whole space race has its origins in a
| propaganda war with the USSR staffed by ex-Nazi
| engineers. It's not more deserving of sacred purity than
| anything else.
|
| I certainly agree with this, but at the same time I think
| it's a red herring. So much good tech comes from war, but
| the nice thing (imho) is that it's "path independent".
| I'm no more going to scorn the work of Werner von Braun
| than I would John von Neumann.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| I also think that calling von Braun a Nazi isn't
| necessarily correct. He worked for the Nazi party, but if
| he didn't it probably wouldn't have worked out very well
| for him, and I don't think he supported their ideals all
| that much. He also always wanted to make his rockets, and
| working at Peenemunde gave him the opportunity to do
| that, even if it did require PoW labour. Obviously I'm
| not saying he was a saint, but I don't think he was as
| "evil" as some people make him out to be, and I don't
| think many people came out of the war with clean hands.
| He just really liked making rockets
| somenameforme wrote:
| I'm not the downvoter here, but somehow this made me
| think of an old play on the title of a biographical film
| about him: 'I aim at the stars! But sometimes I hit
| London...'
| variaga wrote:
| Don't say that he's hypocritical- say rather that he's
| apolitical. 'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they
| come down - that's not my department' says Werner Von
| Braun.
|
| Some have harsh words for this man of renown. But some
| think our attitude should be one of gratitude, like the
| widows and cripples in old London town who owe their
| large pension to Wernher von Braun
|
| Tom Leher, "Werner Von Braun"
| Y_Y wrote:
| FWIW I didn't mean to make any accusations about von
| Braun's character. I was taking "ex-Nazi engineer" to
| mean someone to had been an engineer in the Nazi regime.
| In fairness though, he was an NSDAP member.
| porphyra wrote:
| Let's not forget that right now it seems that only SpaceX
| is putting in the "monumental efforts" to advance the
| "pioneeribg industry", being responsible for the vast
| majority of launches, the only safe crewed spacecraft, as
| well as pushing the frontier of space travel with
| ambitious new projects such as Starship.
| pavlov wrote:
| Does that justify blatant lies?
| tim333 wrote:
| I'm worried spacex will end up a bit like Tesla, largely
| abandoned for Musk to go off on some political weirdness.
| ttw44 wrote:
| Doubt it. Musk only owns something like ~15% of Tesla,
| and owns about 50% of spacex. He knows tesla is
| overvalued immensely and wants to deeply integrate
| himself with government to make sure spacex becomes the
| de facto space org. for the United States (possibly).
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| What "blatant lies" though? The question hasn't really
| been answered. The user wrote:
|
| >Exploiting and lying about the monumental efforts of a
| pioneering industry for cheap political points
|
| I don't know what this means. When someone tells a
| blatant lie, it would be easy to quote them for a start.
| What 'monumental effort' was lied about? If it's about
| Boeing then I have to say I too think the company is
| doing a terrible job and if anyone is lying about the
| effort it's them, there have been numerous whistleblowers
| who came out and talked about the coverups at Boeing.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Just last year NASA launched the largest ever
| interplanetary space-craft, and hopefully the first craft
| to approach and conduct scientific studies on Europa.
| SpaceX is almost entirely focused on getting humans into
| space - which is great - but NASA's work is not to be
| discounted.
| porphyra wrote:
| The Europa Clipper is really cool. I think the Cassini
| Huygens that launched in 1997 has greater mass though.
|
| SpaceX isn't entirely focused on getting humans to space
| since they launch the vast majority of satellites thanks
| to great innovations in reducing the cost of launches,
| such as reusable rockets. But there are some competitor
| launch vehicles coming soon that could be interesting as
| well.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Europa Clipper is 6.1T whilst Huygens was 5.6T:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heaviest_spacecraft
| . Also worth mentioning that Jupiter is much further away
| on average.
| porphyra wrote:
| I got my numbers mixed up --- you're right, the Europa
| Clipper is bigger by all metrics.
| 93po wrote:
| NASA didn't launch it? it was on a falcon heavy
| somenameforme wrote:
| NASA built the probe, but SpaceX launched it. [1] I don't
| think you were suggesting otherwise, but somebody who did
| not know as much would probably misunderstand what you're
| saying.
|
| [1] -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Clipper#Launch_2
| n4r9 wrote:
| Thanks, you're right I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
| someperson wrote:
| Just noting 'throne of lies' is a subheading and not in the
| body of the article. I don't know how Ars Technica does
| things, but in some news outlets a separate editor have
| control over titles and subheading rather than the author of
| the article.
| creesch wrote:
| I mean, if you read the rest of the article the subheading
| fits. So, it doesn't really change the message.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Maybe, but he did write
|
| > And still, the lies came.
| pavon wrote:
| IIRC Ars has stated that the story author is the ones that
| writes the headers/subheaders, but they write multiple and
| A/B testing picks the one to show.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| I wasn't very convinced by his arguments - the main one
| being: Senior NASA officials earlier this
| month confirmed, publicly and on the record, that the
| decision was made by the space agency in the best interests
| of the International Space Station Program. Not for political
| reasons.
|
| To be a little snarky here - so Senior NASA officials:
| honest, Musk: liar?
|
| If, hypothetically, NASA _was_ pressured for political
| reasons, I don 't think Senior NASA officials would reveal it
| to the public anyway. So the fact that they _said_ it 's not
| for political reasons doesn't really prove anything for
| either side of the argument.
| hoseja wrote:
| NASA, the pork factory, not impartial? Impossible!
| Denote6737 wrote:
| What about all the other things. For example the crew
| dragon was docked back in september waiting for return. The
| last administration could have called for return at any
| point before the inaguration to claim glory, but didn't
| because they aren't hacks.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| What do you mean? The fact that they _didn 't_ return the
| astronauts implies the last administration's integrity?
| walls wrote:
| Yes, it shows they weren't manipulating NASA for
| political points.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| That does not make sense.
|
| Did they care more about "not manipulating NASA for
| political points" than about astronauts who were stuck in
| space for 9 months, with all the harmful effects that it
| entails?
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| To be fair, death from re-entry is pretty bad for your
| health as well.
| porphyra wrote:
| Why didn't they do it for the health of the astronauts?
| What would make doing so "hacks"?
| echoangle wrote:
| Why would you do it for the health? Their stays weren't
| extremely long compared to other ISS expeditions.
| erupt7893 wrote:
| Standard rotations are about 6 months - Butch and Suni
| were supposed to be up there for 8 days... Their
| families, their lives, and everything normal for way
| longer than planned. Health routines or not, that's a
| brutal toll--mentally, emotionally, not just bones and
| muscles. Stop downplaying it like it's no big deal
| troupo wrote:
| All you said are literally in the descriptions of the
| jobs they signed up for.
|
| They literally train for multiple gruesome death
| scenarios as part of their training. Not just "well, your
| 8-day stay has now become several months"
| bheadmaster wrote:
| Just because they signed up for it, doesn't mean we
| shouldn't try our best to prevent it. Staying for 9
| months in space is not a small deal for people's health.
| troupo wrote:
| So NASA did indeed try to prevent it, and weighed it
| against a multitude of other considerations, and actual
| experts running actual missions have explicitly and
| patiently explained the what, the how, and the why.
| wang_li wrote:
| >All you said are literally in the descriptions of the
| jobs they signed up for.
|
| Dismissing every exceptional circumstance as "the jobs
| they signed up for." is absurd. That's like saying the
| crash of flight 5342 that killed 67 people is what those
| passengers signed up for, so it's no big deal.
| troupo wrote:
| Turns out they were prepared for this circumstance, had a
| back up plan, and communicated this plan many times.
|
| Just because _you_ don 't like this plan doesn't mean
| it's bad/political/whatever other fantasy you may come up
| with.
|
| > That's like saying the crash of flight 5342 that killed
| 67 people is what those passengers signed up for, so it's
| no big deal.
|
| Nope, it isn't like that at all. None of those passengers
| trained, rigorously, for an extreme number of extreme
| situations. Unlike astronauts whose training includes all
| that, and more.
|
| And risk and exceptional circumstances are absolutely one
| hundred percent in the job description. Unlike the
| passengers in the your analogy you pulled out of an
| unmentionable place.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Having a docked ship is not enough. There must be a
| docked ship on station at all times for evacuations. The
| thing that was needed was another ship to take some
| people back and not _everyone_ (well, all but any
| Russians, since they have their own ships).
| echoangle wrote:
| Wrong, they could have packed all 4 astronauts (the 2
| that came to the ISS on the dragon and Suni and Butch)
| into the docked dragon and returned at any point. They
| only waited for the next dragon (crew 10) so that not
| only the 3 people using the Soyuz would be left on the
| ISS. But this would have absolutely been possible. The
| remaining crew would have used their Soyuz in emergencies
| anyways, they don't need the dragon.
| somenameforme wrote:
| There's way more than just them. Thanks to all the delays
| the 4-man SpaceX Crew-8 [1] stayed on the ISS until
| October 23rd, becoming the longest Dragon stay ever. And
| the 3-man crew from Soyuz MS-26 got there on September
| 11th, and is still there.
|
| In fact reading the Soyuz MS-26 Wiki, one of the many
| records this whole debacle ended up breaking is that when
| the MS-26 entered into space, there were more humans in
| space than ever before, with a total of 19!
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-8
|
| [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_MS-26
| echoangle wrote:
| Did you read my comment? Currently, there is one Dragon
| and one Soyuz docked to the ISS. If Crew-9 had left
| earlier, before the Crew-10 Dragon had arrived, there
| would have been only the Soyuz left.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Do the Soyuz still touch down in a desert in a place like
| Kazakhstan or do they touch down on water nowadays? The
| desert solid ground touch downs seem so brutal.
| echoangle wrote:
| Soyuz is always landing on ground (except in emergencies,
| and Soyuz 23 broke through a frozen lake). They do have
| Retro rockets that are fired shortly before contact and
| dampened Seats, but from the reports I heard, it's still
| a very rough landing.
| PavleMiha wrote:
| But Crew 10 had also been planned for a while, so the
| narrative that Trump ordered a new ship to go up "NOW"
| can't be true. For example, heres a post about NASA
| moving the launch date to March, in December last year: h
| ttps://www.nasa.gov/blogs/commercialcrew/2024/12/17/nasa-
| ad...
| cryptonector wrote:
| This is definitely true. The only questions are: a) could
| they have gone back home on the retrofitted seats on Crew
| 8 or b) could there had been a Crew 10 sooner to allow
| them to go home on Crew 9 sooner. I don't really know
| what's up with those questions.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I can't believe anyone took these claims seriously for even
| a moment.
|
| Musk was a bullshitter even at his best, and he has fallen
| far from that peak in the past couple of years. Just go to
| his Twitter feed and see an unending stream of absolute
| nonsense.
|
| Trump shows no indication that he even understands the
| concept of truth.
|
| And yet somehow people manage to say, "NASA says X, Musk
| and Trump say Y, who knows who's right?"
| bheadmaster wrote:
| In a situation where everyone has an incentive to lie,
| there's no reason to believe anyone.
|
| Musk and Trump have a history of exaggarating, to say it
| lightly, but NASA, like most of the government entities,
| hasn't been transparent with their internal processes
| either.
|
| I see no reason to trust either of them.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I don't see much incentive for NASA to lie. Or rather,
| the incentive goes the other way. The "who cares about
| the truth" approach would be to curry favor with the new
| administration by agreeing with their claims.
|
| There's also a world of difference between "not
| transparent" and the Musk/Trump approach to the truth
| where you're more likely to be correct if you just assume
| everything they say is false.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Yes. Kind of.
|
| Imagine you have two friends. Both are known to be the
| kind of people who eat off of other people's plates.
|
| You go to dinner with both of them. And while you're
| distracted, some food fries disappear from your plate.
|
| At this point, it's similar. Since both friends steal
| food, it could be either.
|
| Except, you've actually been to dinner many times with
| both. And you actually know a little more. You know that
| friend A always takes some of your fries. And friend B
| has always preferred snatching the croutons from your
| salad. But right now, you've got some missing fries.
| So... most likely the fry snatcher is at it again.
|
| Coming back to the real world of liars. We've observed
| that trump and and musk stretch the truth to gain the
| trust/confidence/adoration of others. Braggart style
| behavior. NASA is less than transparent when it comes to
| motives behind various pork barrel things. But when it
| comes to "why'd something not work" they actually have a
| record of being mind numbing thorough and verbose.
|
| So I personally have no problem pinning the less than
| desirable behavior around this on Trump and Musk.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's more like, while you're distracted, your entire
| plate disappears and friend A tells you that friend C
| took it. Friend A is known to hate C and frequently makes
| up completely fabricated accusations about C's behavior.
| Friend A also frequently fabricates nonsense stories
| about all sorts of other things. Friend B is known for
| stealing croutons.
|
| Honestly, the best evidence that Biden did not block a
| rescue mission is Trump and Musk saying that he did.
| kergonath wrote:
| > In a situation where everyone has an incentive to lie,
| there's no reason to believe anyone.
|
| There is only one side with an incentive to lie, and that
| is only because they started lying and now they cannot
| stop without losing face.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Are you only reading every third sentence?
|
| The return vessel was docked in September. The return was
| always planned to be around today, not in September.
|
| Trump and Musk are lying about the astronauts being
| forgotten. They're lying when they claim Biden abandoned
| them.
|
| As far as I can tell, NASA didn't delay for political
| reasons. Nor did they allow the return journey today for
| political reasons. This was the plan all along (well, once
| the initial plans had to be scrapped for technical
| reasons).
| queuebert wrote:
| If that's true, why did the astronauts confirm Musk's
| version of the story in an interview? Genuinely asking
| ...
| throwway120385 wrote:
| What interview? Can you link it?
| mjrpes wrote:
| Probably cherry picking their c-span interview on March
| 4:
|
| > Asked about the claims of political motivations for
| their extended stay, Wilmore said that Musk and Trump may
| have information "that we are not privy to."
|
| But then he says:
|
| > But, he said, "from my standpoint, politics is not
| playing into this at all. From our standpoint, I think
| that they would agree, we came up prepared to stay long,
| even though we plan to stay short."
|
| The fact check article is pretty comprehensive:
| https://www.factcheck.org/2025/03/the-facts-behind-the-
| delay...
| queuebert wrote:
| https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1897470032612851893
|
| (Note: I don't know anything about the X account. It was
| just the first result I found.)
|
| Edit: Also it sucks that I can't ask a genuine question
| on this website without getting downvoted to oblivion.
| Whatever the answer, it would be nice to get it without
| being judged.
| beej71 wrote:
| The astronauts in that clip say they have no information
| on who said what to whom, so it takes the wind out of the
| sails of the statement that everything Musk says is
| factual.
| theurerjohn3 wrote:
| no idea. However the above comment is easily verifiable.
| Here is a link saying that the return would be around
| February 2025 [1]. There seems no reason to believe
| either trump or Elon forced some sort of rush, or Biden
| and his administration ignored or caused some sort of
| slowdown. It looks like a schedule was planned and
| followed.
|
| 1. https://nitter.net/NASA/status/1827393397939634503
| majormajor wrote:
| They basically said "we don't know but I'm not gonna call
| anyone a liar" and it got spun for obvious political
| reasons. https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/butch-and-
| suni-send-mi...
|
| > Wilmore: I can tell you at the outset, all of us have
| the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously, respect
| and admiration for our president of the United States,
| Donald Trump. We appreciate them. We appreciate all that
| they do for us, for human space flight, for our nation.
| The words they said, politics, I mean, that's part of
| life. We understand that. And there's an important reason
| why we have a political system, a political system that
| we do have, and we're behind it 100 percent. We know what
| we've lived up here, the ins and outs, and the specifics
| that they may not be privy to. And I'm sure that they
| have some issues that they are dealing with, information
| that they have, that we are not privy to. So when I think
| about your question, that's part of life, we are on board
| with it.
|
| > Wilmore: From my standpoint, politics is not playing
| into this at all. From our standpoint, I think that they
| would agree, we came up prepared to stay long, even
| though we plan to stay short. That's what we do in human
| spaceflight.
|
| > Wilmore: I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is
| absolutely factual. We have no information on that,
| though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not
| offered; who it was offered to, how that process went.
| That's information that we simply don't have. So I
| believe him. I don't know all those details, and I don't
| think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe
| that you would be hoping for.
|
| To be honest "what he says, is absolutely factual. We
| have no information on that, though, whatsoever; what was
| offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how
| that process went" should register quite highly on
| anyone's political bullshit meter because "absolutely
| factual" is a statement that makes a claim that they then
| say they don't have any facts about.
|
| Anyone who reports those quotes as "comfirming Musk's
| version" should lose a lot of trust.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| They always keep a ship docked in case there's an
| emergency and they need to evacuate.
| croes wrote:
| Didn't know that the accused must prove their innocence?
|
| Where did Musk show his proof it was political?
|
| Given how often Musk and Trump tell BS, bend the truth and
| even lie I tend to believe NASA officials
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > Didn't know that the accused must prove their
| innocence?
|
| I thought this was sarcasm when I first read it.
| troupo wrote:
| > To be a little snarky here - so Senior NASA officials:
| honest, Musk: liar?
|
| We know for a fact that Musk a serial liar with a very
| tenuous grasp of truth.
|
| Can you say the same about the Senior NASA official?
|
| Also, the burden of proof lies on Musk, not on NASA which
| literally has contingencies upon contingencies for such
| situations.
| somenameforme wrote:
| NASA in practice isn't what most people think it is. A
| lot of stuff they're doing is just a mixture of a
| terrible idea (SLS) and will never go anywhere (Artemis),
| amongst others. People in-the-know in space are fully
| aware of this, including NASA officials.
|
| But they keep cheerleading it all and pretending that
| everything will just be awesome. The reason is that NASA
| is basically forced to be political (at least their heads
| seem to feel that way), or their funding will get cut.
| And this also trickles all the way down to the astronauts
| who play politics for the sake of being able to keep
| flying.
|
| It's become a highly dysfunctional organization, so yeah
| - "Senior NASA official" is certainly not a reliable
| source on anything remotely related to politics, and this
| is _hard_ in that domain.
| Rooster61 wrote:
| I don't know if I'd call the SLS a terrible idea. It's
| been a FANTASTIC way to enrich lawmakers, a true
| masterstroke in pork barrel spending.
| troupo wrote:
| And how does that relate to this particular issue? Had
| they been playing political games for the sake of
| funding, they would've immediately jumped as soon as Musk
| and Trump barked, right?
|
| Instead they carefully and patiently explained all the
| issues, and what is going on.
|
| And yet, still, "ah yes, it's NASA that is lying for
| political clout, not the very public very shameless very
| serial liars"
| Blackcatmaxy wrote:
| Blaming NASA for SLS is something I keep seeing but isn't
| it entirely congressional pork barrel politics that makes
| the SLS what it is? What degree of control does NASA
| itself have to force a project of that scale not to
| devolve into such a mess despite congressional
| corruption?
| yellowapple wrote:
| Exactly. If NASA had full control over how and where SLS
| money got spent, I can guarantee you the thing would've
| been a success a decade ago or more, and we'd have
| American boots on lunar ground full-time by now.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| NASA announced last August that the Starliner crew would
| return on SpaceX Crew-9 in Feb 2025.[1] This was discussed
| on Hacker News at the time.[2] Crew-9 was launched in
| September 2024.[3] Crew-9's return was delayed waiting for
| the launch of Crew-10, originally scheduled for Feb 2025,
| but pushed back to March. [4] Anyone repeating the claim
| that Trump and/or Musk "decided" to return the Starliner
| crew is spreading lies, deliberately or unwittingly.
|
| 1. https://nitter.net/NASA/status/1827393397939634503 2.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41339667 3.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-9 4.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-10
| pavon wrote:
| An earlier article[1] goes into more detail about how the
| decision was actually made, which provides more perspective
| about truth vs narrative. It is much more interesting than
| the one linked by the GP.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/nasa-officials-
| undermi...
| kybernetikos wrote:
| I'm confused by this. You can just go and look.
|
| Hacker News comment from 6 months ago, you know, during the
| Biden administration.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41339804:
|
| - They'll reconfigure Crew-8 for 6 occupants for
| contingency evac between Starliner undock and Crew-9
| arrival.
|
| - Starliner leaving ISS autonomously early September
|
| - Crew 9 launching no later than Sept 24th with 2 crew + 2
| empty seats
|
| - Crew 9 coming back down in ~Feb 2025
|
| The advent of Trump and Musk into government seems not to
| have changed that plan one whit, which makes absolutely no
| sense if they're telling the truth.
| kypro wrote:
| Firstly, I understand people will disagree with me on this
| and that's fine - if you disagree please just explain why.
|
| Based on what I've read on this, I can see why Trump and Elon
| MIGHT feel like the return flight was held back for political
| reasons... But I'm not really able to take either side of
| this argument as it stands, so I'll give my thoughts for why
| that is in the hope someone might be able to convince me one
| way or the other...
|
| Firstly, the assumption that NASA is apolitical should be
| questioned. This might just be my ignorance, but I still
| haven't seen any good reasoning for why NASA would delay the
| return flight. As others have noted the capsule was already
| there, but NASA seemingly just decided to randomly keep them
| up there months longer than necessary? Why?
|
| And while it's not fair to blame the Biden administration for
| this directly, ultimately the actions of any government
| agency would be the responsibility of the current
| administration to some extent, so if there was any suspicion
| that the return flight was being pushed back for political
| reasons the Biden administration should have intervened.
|
| I imagine if Elon did push for an earlier return and was
| denied this without a good reason he might have questioned
| why, and I could imagine someone in that position might
| assume a political motive - perhaps reasonably depending on
| those private conversations had.
|
| I also think there's an argument to be made that if the Biden
| administration was friendlier with Elon and didn't go out of
| their way to alienate him that this return flight would have
| happened earlier too. Perhaps because Elon could have spoke
| to Biden directly as he did with Trump, or because NASA would
| have changed their calculation on the PR of the return.
|
| I have tried repeatedly to find a reason why the return
| flight might have been delayed, but haven't been able to find
| any good reason for this so I'm on the fence about why this
| might have happened. If someone can give me a reasonable
| explanation for why they weren't returned earlier (especially
| if it's a reason Elon would have been aware of) I'd likely
| conclude Elon is most likely lying.
|
| Either way the argument, "Elon is wrong because the capsule
| was up there the whole time so they could have been brought
| back whenever, but NASA just decided to push it back" is not
| a convincing explanation that there was no political
| calculation here.
| echoangle wrote:
| The normal process is that you always have at least one US
| and one Russian Vehicle docked to the ISS. In emergencies,
| each crewmember uses their spacecraft to return to earth.
| The normal rotation is that an additional spacecraft
| arrives at the ISS (so there are now 3 vehicles docked in
| total) and then the older spacecraft leaves with its crew.
| So before the single dragon leaves, a new dragon would
| arrive.
|
| I think the general idea is to always have at least some
| Russians and Americans on the ISS at all times (although
| they are doing swapped missions now so even having only one
| vehicle left would ensure that most of the time) and to
| always have crew on the ISS, even if one vehicle needs to
| return early due to technical problems.
| gustavoamigo wrote:
| From what you are saying, it was not a rescue mission
| then? But Trump administration is trying to frame as it
| were. Is that it?
| echoangle wrote:
| The Crew-10 was not a rescue mission because they just
| rotated with Crew-9 which carried the Starliner
| Astronauts back. Crew-9 could be called a rescue mission
| because they took back the Starliner Astronauts. But
| Rescue makes it sound more urgent and dedicated than it
| actually is. They would have flown anyways, just with
| more crew.
| kergonath wrote:
| That is exactly what it is. That mission has been
| scheduled for more than 6 months (though the exact date
| changed a couple of times for technical reasons).
| porphyra wrote:
| My understanding is that Crew 9 was always scheduled for a
| 6 month mission and they couldn't come back before Crew 10
| arrived (in March 2025) or else the ISS would be
| shortstaffed.
|
| The two astronauts in question are simply hitching a ride
| back on this scheduled mission.
| Propelloni wrote:
| > Firstly, the assumption that NASA is apolitical should be
| questioned. This might just be my ignorance, but I still
| haven't seen any good reasoning for why NASA would delay
| the return flight. As others have noted the capsule was
| already there, but NASA seemingly just decided to randomly
| keep them up there months longer than necessary? Why?
|
| Why is anybody actually thinking that? The return of Crew-9
| is the culmination of a well orchestrated series of
| missions to cope with the outage of Starliner Calypso. It
| may have slipped the attention of some, but space missions
| are not like buying groceries. These assumptions are
| basically just betraying a lack of understanding how space
| travel works. Musk, OTOH, should know this.
|
| Furthermore, there is the long-standing policy of having at
| least one working capsule at the ISS for emergencies. A
| lifeboat or escape pod, so to speak. Plus, there are only
| two docking slots for large-enough capsules, such as
| Starliners or Dragons, on the ISS. So you have to schedule
| your trips even more than for normal space missions. You
| have to coordinate and swap crafts in sequence and deal
| with the launch windows schedule -- which is exactly what
| has happened. Again, Musk should know this.
|
| > I think there's an argument to be made that if the Biden
| administration was friendlier with Elon and didn't go out
| of their way to alienate him that this return flight would
| have happened earlier too. Perhaps because Elon could have
| spoke to Biden directly as he did with Trump, or because
| NASA would have changed their calculation on the PR of the
| return.
|
| Why would the CEO of a contractor of a US government agency
| need to speak to the president of the USA to do the job
| they were hired for? The agency has more capable people to
| decide on such matters than any White House staff.
|
| It's all a huge charade of grandstanding and chest-
| thumping. Disappointing.
| espadrine wrote:
| > _I still haven 't seen any good reasoning for why NASA
| would delay the return flight_
|
| So many comments spread unsourced assertions on the topic
| on both sides. Let me change that.
|
| On 24 Aug 2024, NASA stated in a conference published on
| X[0]:
|
| > _NASA has decided that Butch and Suni will return with
| Crew-9 next February._
|
| So the decision sounded like it stemmed from NASA, and the
| plan a year ago was for a return in the time frame that
| actually occurred.
|
| On 28 Sept 2024, the spacecraft that would bring Ms
| Williams and Mr Wilmore was launched. They restated the
| same plan[1]:
|
| > _A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and a Dragon spacecraft will
| launch Crew-9 to the space station for about a five-month
| mission. Hague and Gorbunov will join Butch Wilmore and
| Suni Williams, who are already aboard the space station,
| and all will return to Earth as a crew of four in February
| 2025._
|
| Thus there was no action after Mr Trump took office that
| changed the plan. (Note that the SpaceX article we're
| commenting on has a mistake, stating that Mr Grebenkin has
| come down on 18 March, but Mr Grebenkin came down on 25
| Oct; it is indeed Gorbunov that came down.)
|
| On 7 March 2025, Ken Bowersox, associate administrator,
| Space Operations Mission Directorate, stated[2] on the
| motivation for this:
|
| > _When it comes to adding on missions or bringing a
| capsule home early: those were always options but we ruled
| them out pretty quickly just based on how much money we 've
| got in our budget and the importance of keeping crews on
| the International Space Station._
|
| When asked specifically about a request from Mr Musk to
| have an earlier return:
|
| > _Was anyone outside NASA or the White House involved in
| the decision not to bring Suni and Butch back sooner? --
| There may have been some conversations that I wasn 't part
| of. When we made the technical decisions about Starliner
| [...] our leadership at NASA was trying to make sure that
| we considered everything just at a technical level and
| that's what we did._
|
| [0]: https://x.com/NASA/status/1827396382702878966
|
| [1]: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/commercialcrew/2024/09/28/n
| asas-s...
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/live/Xq5CH-d4IuU?si=-q-J65i7G_
| d6Mcxs...
| kcplate wrote:
| I think it's a hugely complex problem but it basically
| boils down to a few key things.
|
| - could ISS support docking an additional crew dragon for
| the time it would take to return the starliner crew without
| adversely disrupting other scheduled spacecraft flow?
|
| - could spacex have delivered an additional crew dragon to
| the ISS and departed before any other without downstream
| impact to future crew dragon missions?
|
| - was someone willing to pay for all of this?
|
| - could it have been done safely for all crews and the ISS?
|
| If the answer was yes to all of those questions, then there
| likely was a political reason behind waiting to return them
| on crew 9. What that is, I can't speculate.
|
| If any question gives a "no" then the decision was probably
| not political but operational in nature.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I think the only question that _might_ be a no is 'was
| someone willing to pay for all of this.' But I think even
| that being a 'no' is suggestive of a political
| motivation, given that the alternative (that "we" ended
| up going with) was borderline ridiculous in the chaos
| that it caused. We ended up, for the first time ever,
| with a Russian cosmonaut was in control of an American
| spacecraft, and a rookie cosmonaut with only basic
| training on the Dragon at that.
|
| It also forced NASA to completely change their safety
| standards. In particular NASA requires there be a
| 'lifeboat' on on the ISS for all crew in case of an
| emergency, but because of the Boeing crew (and the lack
| of a corresponding vessel), NASA approved a new
| 'configuration' of the Dragon where up to 3 people could
| strap themselves to the floor of it, where cargo would
| normally go, in case of the need of a mass escape from
| the ISS. [2]
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-9
|
| [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Crew_Flight_Te
| st#Uncrew...
| kcplate wrote:
| There are stories that Musk was willing to foot the bill.
| Of course thats easy to say after the other decisions
| have been made, but my guess is my second point was
| probably the real no--at least not in a timely or safe
| enough manner to make the overall future mission
| disruptions worth it from NASA's POV.
| weberer wrote:
| >"We're going to stand by for splashdown located in the Gulf
| of America," she said.
|
| >Ah, yes. The Gulf of America.
|
| >This is why we can't have nice things.
|
| That doesn't sound like an "excellent journalist". It sounds
| like a Redditor.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| I cringed reading that. It's like something an edgy West
| coast teenage Redditor would write.
| pavlov wrote:
| Yeah, instead of evaluating a journalist by looking at over
| a decade of high-quality work he has done writing about
| this space, let's pull up a joke from one article and judge
| that.
|
| Do you realize that you're the one behaving like a low-
| quality Redditor here.
| seanw444 wrote:
| > That doesn't sound like an "excellent journalist". It
| sounds like a Redditor.
|
| We're not talking about their >decade of work. We're
| talking about this work, and this work sounds like a
| Redditor.
| rpmisms wrote:
| You're arguing from priors. I respect Berger's work, but
| it doesn't exempt him from acting like a pillock,
| clearly.
| 93po wrote:
| Basically any online article site like ars comes across as
| a Redditor with reddit-tier takes and a mixture of ChatGPT.
| If you graduate to something like the NYT then you sound
| like a lobbyist.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Berger wrote two books on SpaceX in a very positive light
| generally, portraying Musk as extraordinarily driven and
| capable though not passing over less admirable traits.
| Berger is not a hater.
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| Prior to DOGE? That is really the question.
|
| Once a favorable celebrity wears the Red or ventures near
| the Orange the script is rewritten.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| True integrity is being a fan of someone no matter what
| they do or say, indefinitely into the future
| avhon1 wrote:
| You can easily look this stuff up:
|
| Liftoff was published January 3, 2023
|
| Reentry was published September 2024
|
| https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liftoff-eric-
| berger?v...
|
| https://benbellabooks.com/shop/reentry/
| altcognito wrote:
| An excellent journalist recognizes that the President can't
| unilaterally rename internationally recognized bodies of
| water.
|
| What is the complaint? You don't like the style of rebuking
| this ridiculous behavior?
| beej71 wrote:
| Ad hominem.
| corey_moncure wrote:
| Ars has been like this ever since Conde Nast bought them. It
| was a great publication a long time ago.
| cft wrote:
| Pure ideological drivel. Anti technology.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Eric Berger used to be a major standout from them, and
| has traditionally never delved into the partisan
| nonsense. I've recommended him, on this account alone,
| countless times. He was a diamond surrounded by a pile of
| crap.
|
| It's extremely out of character and the writing on this
| exact topic is somewhat contradicted by other articles he
| himself wrote on it, like this [1] one. I have a
| suspicion he's being pressured to increase
| engagement/subscriptions, and it's trivial to do that in
| the age of such extreme political derangement.
|
| Countdown to Substack.
|
| [1] - https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/butch-and-
| suni-send-mi...
| kenjackson wrote:
| In the linked article he stated:
|
| "For what it is worth, all of the reporting done by Ars
| over the last nine months suggests the decision to return
| Wilmore and Williams this spring was driven by technical
| reasons and NASA's needs on board the International Space
| Station, rather than because of politics."
| somenameforme wrote:
| Read the article I linked above, also written by Eric
| Berger! Butch confirmed Elon's claim that he made an
| offer to bring them home last year was accurate. So we
| know that that offer was made, and must have been
| rejected. What we don't know is why.
|
| But the real thing here is that Eric Berger has written
| _extensively_ about the political games NASA plays or
| (depending on one 's perspective) is compelled to play.
| They support a lot of fundamentally flawed programs that
| are either a complete waste of money or will never go
| anywhere, like SLS/Artemis. The reason they do this is
| because, in NASA's case, their funding depends on it and,
| in the astronauts' case, because they'll never fly again
| if they don't play ball.
|
| So you don't simply take things NASA says at face value -
| again something he has written about ad nauseum. His
| understanding of the industry, and the games surrounding
| it, are part of what made (and hopefully in the future
| continues to make) him such an excellent reporter. But
| this latest article just dumps all of that and is written
| with all the insight and worldview of somebody on
| /r/politics.
| pavon wrote:
| That interview doesn't really say much. It is mostly an
| carefully worded, polite but empty statement made after
| earlier extemporaneous comments by Suni and Butch
| seemingly contradicted Musk. The headline claim is
| basically just Butch saying he has no insight into the
| decision process but he trusts Musk is telling the truth.
|
| In contrast other articles Eric wrote talking to people
| who where involved in the decision of how and when to
| return Butch and Suni, those officials clearly state that
| the decision was made for technical and programmatic
| reasons, not political pressure.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I 100% agree he's phrasing things 'politically', but
| think about how you might also be reading what you want
| to read. For instance the section where you [reasonably]
| claim he's contradicting Musk (by claiming the decision
| was not political) was also not only phrased politically,
| but even came with a sort of disclaimer starting with
| "From my standpoint." There were no such disclaimers when
| stating that Musk made some sort of an offer to return
| the astronauts.
|
| And again something you can't discount here is that Eric
| himself has written _extensively_ about NASA frequently
| carrying out /endorsing poor decisions (SLS/Artemis being
| the low hanging fruit there) owing much more to political
| pressure than pragmatic decisions about the best
| direction for progress. Here [1] is one example,
| including an interview with a former high level NASA
| insider (30 years experience, up to deputy administrator)
| openly and casually talking about such.
|
| It's not a secret whatsoever that NASA is under constant
| and significant political pressure. It's just a part of
| the game. And in this case you had a situation where the
| guy, who had basically become public enemy #2 (from the
| previous administration's POV), was going to be
| spearheading a high visibility rescue of a launch that
| should never have been approved in the first place -
| undoubtedly while blasting it all to his tens of millions
| of followers. To imagine this would not have provoked
| some behind the scenes 'management' just seems
| unthinkable to me.
|
| [1] - https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/former-
| nasa-official...
| majormajor wrote:
| How are you possibly parsing "We have no information on
| that, though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not
| offered; who it was offered to, how that process went" as
| "I can confirm that Musk made that offer and it was
| declined"?
|
| That is a HUGE disclaimer. "no information on that,
| though, whatsoever" - it doesn't get any bigger than
| that.
| kenjackson wrote:
| This is the main quote from the Willmore interview you
| linked, that seems most relevant:
|
| "I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is
| absolutely factual. We have no information on that,
| though, whatsoever; what was offered, what was not
| offered; who it was offered to, how that process went.
| That's information that we simply don't have. So I
| believe him. I don't know all those details, and I don't
| think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe
| that you would be hoping for."
|
| That has to be a nominee for doublespeak quote of the
| year -- and that's not a low bar this year.
| majormajor wrote:
| > Read the article I linked above, also written by Eric
| Berger! Butch confirmed Elon's claim that he made an
| offer to bring them home last year was accurate. So we
| know that that offer was made, and must have been
| rejected. What we don't know is why.
|
| Read his goddamn quote you're citing. The part where he
| says "We have no information on that, though, whatsoever;
| what was offered, what was not offered; who it was
| offered to, how that process went".
|
| Which part of "I believe him despite having no
| information" do you think is "confirming"?
| ta1243 wrote:
| When you have the owner of the company which provides
| your space flight lying about spaceflight and nasa,
| calling the commander of the space station an idiot, and
| the president making total lies up about the entire
| process, you can't be apolitical.
| croes wrote:
| When Trump said
|
| >They got left in space
|
| And Musk >They were left up there for political reasons
|
| There was the line already crossed, because those statements
| are untrue and they know.
|
| In other words they lied.
| Symmetry wrote:
| I think the author probably made a mistake in using that
| subheading. For those familiar with the meme[1] it's saying
| that this isn't that important but read straight it says the
| opposite. I'm all for playful subheadings, I love when The
| Economist uses them, but they shouldn't radically alter the
| meaning when a big fraction of the audience won't get any
| particular subtle reference and I think that makes this a
| failure of writing.
|
| [1]https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-sit-on-a-throne-of-lies
| bigtones wrote:
| > He's very knowledgeable about space topics, has good
| sources, and has been extremely fair to Musk in the past.
|
| None of the writers of Ars Technica are anything like fair to
| Musk.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Do you think it's easy to be "fair" to someone who
| continually spouts misinformation, falsehoods, and retweets
| or reply-boosts such things on an almost daily basis?
| glenda wrote:
| You're right, they're probably not critical enough.
| pokstad wrote:
| They were all "fair" to him until he switched politics.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Musk's donations to political parties is public (leaving
| aside SuperPAC and other funding being hidden).
|
| He has NEVER donated more to the Democrats than the
| Republicans. Like most billionaires he donates to both
| parties. Historically, he donates _ten times_ more to the
| Republicans and the Democrats.
|
| Nothing about Musk has ever seemed "liberal". Just
| convenient. He smokes weed on shows, but if you work for
| one of his companies you'll be fired if you don't piss
| clean. Anti-taxes. Anti-regulation/oversight.
|
| How has he ever been democrat-leaning in any meaningful
| way?
| kergonath wrote:
| > None of the writers of Ars Technica are anything like
| fair to Musk.
|
| True. For some reason they keep minimising the damage he is
| doing to both science and democracy.
| exodust wrote:
| The topic is "crew returns to Earth" not arstechnica's routine
| political spin.
|
| Does arstechnica mention the dolphins even once? Nope. How
| about Trump? _Six times_! Meanwhile, sibling comment applauds
| the writer for his "knowledge of space topics".
| fabian2k wrote:
| Musk and Trump made this political, not Eric Berger.
| rdtsc wrote:
| When was space not political?
| baxtr wrote:
| Like when was anything not political?
| rdtsc wrote:
| What do you mean by "anything"? The chair I am sitting is
| not terribly political, for instance.
| ncallaway wrote:
| I mean, from a certain perspective, it absolutely is.
|
| Where was it manufactured? What were the labor laws where
| it was manufactured? Was there any environmental impact
| in its construction? How was it shipped to you, and was
| there any environmental or safety impact of that
| transportation? If it broke the day after it arrived,
| would the manufacturer owe you a replacement, or would
| you have to replace it at your own cost (caveat emptor)?
|
| These are all decisions that had to be made, and were
| largely made collectively through a political process.
| Your chair likely wasn't constructed with slave labor--
| which was a political choice. If the chair breaks within
| minutes of arriving, the manufacturer will likely owe you
| a replacement through its implicit warranty according to
| the UCC.
|
| So, no, the chair itself doesn't have political opinions.
| But the chair does have many direct ties to political
| choices that we've made.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Everything is connected to everything else. Everything
| anyone does continuously gets tangled with everything
| else, in a bubble of causality that expands at the speed
| of light.
|
| That's not a very useful perspective to have, though.
|
| Similarly, everything humans do has some connection to
| politics. For most things in most contexts, that
| connection is irrelevant in practice. The only reason one
| wants to make obviously non-political things political,
| is to shift the conversation from rational, object-level,
| reasonable context, to one where truth and objective
| reality don't matter - and they want to do it, because
| that bullshit-land is where they live and they have a
| home-field advantage there.
| baxtr wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| That why asking "When was space not political?" is not
| very useful either.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > I mean, from a certain perspective, it absolutely is.
|
| It's "absolutely" in the same category as running a space
| race for decades between two superpowers, sacrificing
| enormous resources including human lives? Ok, then....
| overfeed wrote:
| What's the design? What's it made of? Where were the
| materials sourced? Why? Where was it made? Why? Was it
| supposed to be marked as potentially containing
| carcinogenics?
| rdtsc wrote:
| What's the design? -Don't know, it's a simple chair.
|
| What's it made of? -Wood and fiber.
|
| Where were the materials sourced? -No idea
|
| Why? -Why what?
|
| Where was it made? -Factory in a town over
|
| Why? -Is it the first "why" or a different one?
|
| Was it supposed to be marked as potentially containing
| carcinogenics? -Sorry don't follow this one. It's chair
| to sit on.
|
| I guess you were trying to show that this chair is about
| just as political as decades running a space race between
| two world powers? It's a good try but I think we'll need
| better questions to answer.
| avmich wrote:
| Space can be political or it can be political. Response
| to Spootnik-level event is political. Gaming with
| expectable difficulties in space exploration, pointing
| fingers to the previous administration, is political. But
| those are different kinds of "political".
| overfeed wrote:
| It sounds to me like you're starting from a position of
| "a chair is free of politics" and working backwards to
| justify that position. Without knowing where the
| materials came from, how can you declare it's free from
| politics, or perhaps you don't want to admit the
| possibility of it being imported, surrendering a toehold
| for an argument for trade and treaties.
|
| What's considered "normal" for a chair in your corner of
| the world is determined by your history (and therefore
| politics). There are regulation that impact the materials
| and processes that go with making the chair, as well as
| quality
|
| > Where was it made? -Factory in a town over
|
| Why is the chair factory in the next town over and not
| your own? Is the factory unionized?
| tempestn wrote:
| When rescuing astronauts stranded on the ISS, one would
| expect. I can't imagine any other president using that as
| an opportunity to explicitly bash his predecessor. Can
| you?
| esskay wrote:
| Nobody was stranded.
| lupusreal wrote:
| If my car breaks down and I have to wait a few hours for
| somebody to pick me up, I'm stranded.
| esskay wrote:
| Awful anology.
|
| The constant in all the news cycles is about how they've
| been stranded all this time. Which isn't just a bit
| misleading, its a flat out lie.
|
| Even when starliner departed, they werent standed. There
| was litterally an emergency plan prepared for how they'd
| get them home if they had to, and made modifications to
| the existing crew 8 ship to allow for this. This was all
| covered in the briefing:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGOswKRSsHc
|
| So once again, nobody was stranded. They could've come
| home at any point if they needed to.
|
| The definition of stranded is litterally "left without
| the means to move from somewhere." which is VERY clearly
| not the case.
| lupusreal wrote:
| You're leaning on some _" ackshully technically"_
| definition of stranded. The fact that they had emergency
| contingencies in place the whole time doesn't invalidate
| the fact that they were stranded in the common colloquial
| sense of the term.
|
| If I'm at work and my car breaks down, I'm stranded. I
| call my buddy to pick me up, and if there is an emergency
| I can ask a coworker to drive me home, but I'd rather not
| inconvenience them and so I am stranded until my buddy
| comes.
|
| The word _stranded_ is almost never used to describe
| scenarios where _literally no contingency exists_ ,
| because such scenarios almost never happen in modern
| live. To insist on such pedantry would be to effectively
| retire the word from common parlance.
| vel0city wrote:
| If your car breaks down but you decide to wait for the
| tow truck even though you have a backup car ready to go
| in case things get bad are you still "stranded"?
| lupusreal wrote:
| If that backup car is being held in reserve in case other
| people who are intending to stay where I am have an
| emergency, then yes.
| concordDance wrote:
| This is a really fascinating case of words having a
| venacular meaning that become fuzzy out of their normal
| domain. Could the astronauts have gone back to Earth in
| an emergency? Yes. Did they have the freedom to leave
| earlier? Sortof but not really. Could NASA have paid
| SpaceX another $200 million for an extra mission to pick
| up in December/January? Probably.
|
| If your car breaks down a couple of miles from home and
| you call a friend and tell him you're stranded, are you
| lying? What if it's 20 miles away? But uber exists? What
| if uber is extremely expensive right now at $2000? But
| there's a guy next to you offering to sell you a bicycle?
|
| In the end, to ask the question "were they stranded?" we
| have to unpack "stranded" and figure out what is the
| question we _actually_ want answered. Is it about the
| feelings of the astronauts? Their preferences? The danger
| level they 're in? Is it about Boeing's culpability? Is
| it about whether we can safely call Trump a liar? Musk?
|
| The classic: https://www.readthesequences.com/Disguised-
| Queries
| esskay wrote:
| This has the same flaw as the other person who replied to
| me.
|
| Using the car anology only works if you also say you've
| got another car following you at all times, fully fuled
| and capable of getting you home, in which case, no, you
| are not stranded.
|
| Stranded implies they cant get home. Not that it costs
| more, or is inconvenient. The litteral definition is
| "left without the means to move from somewhere".
| concordDance wrote:
| I'm afraid you'll find far more non-literal uses of
| "stranded" than you will find literal ones if you looked
| at how humans actually use words.
|
| In fact, I'd be surprised if even 1 in 100 actual uses of
| the word in, say, 2023 matched the definition you've
| given.
|
| "Left by your friends in an empty car park? Well, there's
| technically an unlocked bicycle over there..."
| tempestn wrote:
| The point is not the definition of the word stranded.
| They were up there for much longer than they expected or
| planned. That involved some amount of hardship. (Missing
| their families for months, if nothing else.) Bringing
| them back was not an appropriate opportunity to make it
| about how bad Trump thinks Biden is.
| BasilofBasiley wrote:
| All the time. Nothing political about the Punch mission,
| or the current solar maximum spewing out a bunch of
| flares last year. Actually it's a bit of a shame the
| Punch mission wasn't launched sooner, so we could see
| amazing flares in 3D. But that's just me, I like sun
| stuff.
|
| The point is, if you seek political stuff you'll find it,
| even a political spin on a recent flare that is being yet
| again compared to the Carrington Event. I'm here for the
| sun stuff and other space stuff. I'm here all the time,
| before and after the dust settles. I'm here for the
| "boring" stuff. If you have to ask that question, you're
| a tourist. Sorry if it comes across as gatekeeping. But
| it really looks like that to me.
|
| Sure the thing's been politically amplified into oblivion
| by the parties involved. That doesn't mean ranting about
| the gulf of america and all the other things the author
| doesn't like about the current political situation in
| that arstechnica article, is a good suggestion to be
| bumped into a top comment. Neither is burying exodust's
| comment which I think has a very good point that I agree
| with.
|
| Quote from the arstechnica article: "This is why we can't
| have nice things.". Yes it is. This is exactly it. Guess
| I'll just have to wait for the tourists to go elsewhere.
| Anyone who came for political reasons and stayed for the
| boring stuff is very much welcome, as always.
| iszomer wrote:
| Not political? Read back on the American hysteria and
| subsequent response to the launch of Sputnik 1.
|
| - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1
| avmich wrote:
| Sounds like a change of the topic :( .
| exodust wrote:
| Again, the topic is "crew returning to Earth." You, Berger,
| and whoever posted the arstechnica link have brought
| politics to the party.
|
| I liked how they had a drone circling the recovery activity
| at the splashdown site. All live-streamed for our informed
| entertainment. SpaceX is undeniably doing a great job,
| although the starship explosions in our atmosphere I'm not
| a fan of, I look forward to that not happening.
| PavleMiha wrote:
| Did you read Trump's post about the mission calling the
| previous administration incompetents? That predates
| Berger's post?
| exodust wrote:
| What? The parent article is a SpaceX mission post.
| Meanwhile I note you have contributed 2 posts in this
| topic and both of them are about Trump. Do you have any
| thoughts on the actual event that took place? Or is your
| needle stuck in Trump's groove?
| sethammons wrote:
| The arstechnica article is in response to a truth social
| post by the president where President Trump makes this
| political by blaming Biden.
|
| Trump is stirring shit with lies to sway the public.
| exodust wrote:
| Again, this thread's parent article is a SpaceX mission
| launch post stating a brief outline and details. And the
| top comment links to some rubbish tech-wanker article.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| 1. Crew cleans capsule from toxic fuel
|
| 2. Oh look cute dolphins came to watch
|
| ...are they dead now?
| concordDance wrote:
| I've heard rumors that SpaceX suggested another mission to
| bring them back earlier, but as it would only have been a
| couple of months earlier NASA very sensibly declined (not worth
| >100 million to reduce their time in space by a third).
|
| Know if there's anything to that?
|
| Might explain some of the odd rhetoric.
| fooker wrote:
| SpaceX offered to do it for free. Publicly.
| verzali wrote:
| When? Do you have a link?
|
| Because the most recent delay was down to SpaceX. Their new
| dragon capsule was not ready on time to collect them, so
| they had to shift and replan for an older one.
| exe34 wrote:
| "free".
|
| Elon Musk offers a lot of things for free, and then turns
| out you have to pay anyway.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| Like?
| eitland wrote:
| First example that comes to mind is Starlinks for
| Ukraine.
| concordDance wrote:
| I thought _some_ of those were still free. Do you have
| information to the contrary?
|
| Edit: italicized
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Per the Polish government, they're paying $50M per year
| for Ukraines service.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy87vg38dnpo.amp
| melodyogonna wrote:
| if $50m per year enough for the Starlink services needed
| in Ukraine?
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| no - it's a tiny fraction of the actual cost. so it's not
| "free" but it's massively subsidized to the point of
| being nearly free when it's a country paying for it
| ta1243 wrote:
| In a high-development high-capital low-marginal cost it's
| tricky to determine the "actual cost". The marginal cost
| is minimal. The opportunity cost is minimal too (not like
| the satellites over Ukraine could be providing
| connectivity for other congested areas).
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| You are going to have to do better than some tweet
| battle. AFAIU from Wikipedia with decent sources the
| service is free, but the terminal's not, and that is what
| Poland paid.
|
| Also, it's not like Ukraine or even Poland has to pay,
| the can pay if they want, they can also not pay if they
| want. It's entirely elective. They can stop using any
| time they want. I heard that Google has a Starlink
| replacement in the works that is super awesome and I also
| heard that while Europe has completely killed itself with
| regulation they are entirely willing to buy things made
| by China which has absolutely no regulation.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-
| Ukrain...
| exe34 wrote:
| > they can also not pay if they want. It's entirely
| elective.
|
| even if they pay, he can supply it if he wants, or he can
| cut them off if it threatens to inconvenience Russia.
| Denote6737 wrote:
| Doge
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| how much is he being paid for doge?
| ta1243 wrote:
| Billions
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| Cite?
| exe34 wrote:
| he closed down all the government departments that had
| open cases on his contracts.
| kace91 wrote:
| Didn't he very publicly offer to fund fixing world hunger
| then ignored it when an NGO came up with an actual plan?
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| How much was he paid for fixing world hunger?
| jandrese wrote:
| I assume you are referring to this:
| https://truthout.org/articles/musk-pledged-6b-to-solve-
| world...
|
| As a response to this:
| https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/04/26/elon-musk-hunger/
| rpmisms wrote:
| He called them on some ridiculous claim that $10 billion
| could end world hunger. He said that if they could show
| him how, he'd donate the money.
|
| Spoiler alert, they could not show him how.
| belter wrote:
| You are lying.
|
| "The Facts Behind the Delayed Return of U.S. Astronauts" -
| https://www.factcheck.org/2025/03/the-facts-behind-the-
| delay...
| fooker wrote:
| I wonder if you have read through this article yourself?
| belter wrote:
| Yes. Did you? Since you are insisting, can you point to
| the part that supports your statement:
|
| "SpaceX offered to do it for free. Publicly."
|
| It will be kinder for you, to think you're lying, than to
| suspect a deficit in judgment...
| fooker wrote:
| "Wilmore said he had no reason to doubt Musk's claims
| about an offer to bring them home earlier"
|
| "Ken Bowersox, NASA's associate administrator for space
| operations, said, "I think there may have been some
| conversations that I wasn't part of." But he said the
| option to fly a separate mission to the space station to
| retrieve the astronauts was "ruled out pretty quickly."
|
| First hand sources:
| https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1892617681796264436 https:/
| /www.youtube.com/live/rCiNtismqg8?si=M8ZfF79yK9pwYJ1o
| rdtsc wrote:
| > I've heard rumors that SpaceX suggested another mission to
| bring them back earlier, but as it would only have been a
| couple of months earlier NASA very sensibly declined (not
| worth >100 million to reduce their time in space by a third).
|
| I guess it came down to money more than politics? But
| interestingly that part is missing from reporting about this.
| Which, if true, reporters hiding that yet saying "let's not
| make it political" are making it political. Which sadly is
| also not surprising.
| acdha wrote:
| It's been widely reported since Musk attacked that Dutch
| astronaut but only in the sense that he claimed something
| with no evidence that it ever happened.
|
| Ken Bowersox, NASA's associate administrator for space
| operations, said "I think there may have been some
| conversations that I wasn't part of."
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/04/starline
| r...
|
| https://www.c-span.org/program/news-conference/nasa-
| spacex-c...
| concordDance wrote:
| I can tell this is a polarizing comment because it's been
| bouncing back and forth from -1 to +5 repeatedlt, but I don't
| really understand why...
|
| Maybe one of the downvoters can explain?
| davidguetta wrote:
| "Just what those political reasons were never specified. But
| the basic message was clear: Biden, bad; Trump, good"
|
| Bullshit. Musk was clear that the reason was that they didn't
| want someone pro trump having success so close to the election.
| pell wrote:
| Musk says a lot of things. Naivety is on display when you
| accept them without skepticism.
| davidguetta wrote:
| i never said what he says is true, just that it was not
| "never specified"
| kergonath wrote:
| > Musk was clear that the reason was that they didn't want
| someone pro trump having success so close to the election.
|
| This makes no sense whatsoever. The election was in November.
| If that was their calculation, they'd just have cosplayed
| astronaut-saving heroes before Trump had an opportunity to do
| so, between November and January. Musk is full of it, as
| usual.
|
| It is not the first time some astronauts stay in space longer
| than expected and it _never_ was controversial before. The
| people making noise cannot even find a single reason for
| Biden to do what they accuse him of doing, much less any
| proof that he did so.
| fooker wrote:
| > find a single reason
|
| You started this response by explicitly ignoring that
| reason.
|
| > it never was controversial before
|
| It was also never the case that the US was launching ~two
| rockets per week.
| davidguetta wrote:
| Tbh i personally thought it was an common sense economic
| thing: why pay more for SpaceX early return + a direct
| flight for the other astronaut that were scheduled to work
| on the ISS, if you can make the ones already there work in
| the ISS.
|
| > This makes no sense whatsoever. The election was in
| November. If that was their calculation, they'd just have
| cosplayed astronaut-saving heroes before Trump had an
| opportunity to do so, between November and January. Musk is
| full of it, as usual
|
| Musk offered to bring them back way before the election so
| HE would have appeared as the saver (and boeing would have
| looked terrible). Musk is probably exaggerating, but you
| can't completely ignore the political forces behind all
| this.
| pie_flavor wrote:
| Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk puff
| pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces. It's
| just as grating, and when every other news org is reporting it
| more measuredly you should be _very_ cautious before calling
| their summary 'good'. For example, this article claims the
| political reasons are unspecified, but they were in fact
| discussed at length (I think Musk even mentioned them on a
| podcast at the time, though can't remember which one).
|
| The choices were whether to leave them up there longer as the
| next crew rotation, or let them come home and send up another
| crew like normal. One would save the government the cost of a
| new Crew Dragon launch (not insignificant - $100m-150m), and
| the other would save NASA's valuable astronauts from the long
| term health effects of a year in space (usually crews are
| rotated every six months for health reasons, like bone density
| and muscle mass problems).
|
| NASA reported that the factor keeping them from being brought
| home was cost, and they didn't _have_ the $100m for a new
| Dragon launch in the budget. But this was bunk. The next launch
| was already budgeted for, because this is on a well-planned-for
| rotation. It could have been because they wanted to _keep_ the
| $100m, but if they falsely claimed it wasn 't budgeted for,
| then (as Musk postulated) it's a good bet that the real reason
| is that this would have been a big PR win for Musk, saving
| America's cherished astronauts from Boeing's massive screwup,
| and since he had already begun bankrolling Trump's campaign,
| Biden did not want him to have this PR win.
| SecretDreams wrote:
| > Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk
| puff pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces.
|
| When Musk wasn't insane, I think a lot of people valued him a
| bit more. I personally haven't cared for him since pedo guy,
| but others did.
|
| Reality is he's now batshit crazy, destroying America, and
| intersecting himself in a bunch of shit nobody wants him
| close to. Of course that has rubbed a lot of people the wrong
| way.
|
| It's not a "shift to the right". I don't care of someone is a
| bit right or a bit left. This man is dangerous, out there
| setting America back decades, and sending out some hail
| Hitlers along the way.
|
| Shift right... Come on.
| acdha wrote:
| I think trying to fit things into a dichotomy of puff/hit
| pieces is actually obscuring the truth here. Eric Berger is a
| space flight enthusiast and so he covered SpaceX positively
| when they were doing good work there, but now that Musk seems
| to be interested only in playing political games rather than
| running his companies, there isn't much positive to report:
| it's not a hit piece, just the truth many SpaceX fans didn't
| want to hear. It's not a left/right thing (do you know how
| Boeing's CEO votes?) but rather Musk having fully embraced
| the post-modern world of right-wing politics where there's no
| such thing as truth which contradicts what the party wants to
| be true.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| Fundamentally, it's the "reality has a liberal bias"
| problem. Accurate reporting is interpreted as a political
| act because it disagrees with the "alternative facts" being
| presented by the right wing.
| fooker wrote:
| Yes, reality does have a liberal bias.
|
| If you can write a one sentence definition of liberalism,
| and examine policies from first principles, you might be
| surprised.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > Prior to Musk's shift to the right, Ars ran frequent Musk
| puff pieces; post shift, they run frequent Musk hit pieces.
|
| You have to go a long way back to find Ars articles on Musk
| that aren't derogatory. They were ahead of the curve on this,
| apart from their rocket articles (usually). I've always found
| it unprofessional and off-putting.
| bsdice wrote:
| Just another example of the US government stuffing media and
| the public and also foreign countries with three outrageous
| 'things' per day. It's exactly like the quote from a famous
| movie where Gust Avrakotos says that if you present three
| scandals in the left hand, you can park an aircraft carrier
| behind your right hand and nobody will notice.
|
| Claiming the astronauts where stranded by the Biden admin is
| just one of those things for the left hand. Of course had Kate
| dared call it the Gulf of Mexico, she'd be in serious trouble
| only an hour later. Defiantly, without a job two hours later
| once CEO heard from lower management.
|
| Something any dictator sooner or later gets into serious
| trouble, because he is only surrounded by obedient people from
| his bubble. Warping the view of reality. All others fell out a
| window or best case, got fired.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Their opening paragraph immediately attempts to trigger
| partisan responses. A bit off putting.
|
| Then this line: "NASA--not the Biden administration, which all
| of my reporting indicates was not involved in any decision-
| making--decided the best and safest option"... NASA is part of
| the executive branch. So yes, it was the Biden administration.
|
| I don't necessarily agree with Musk that the delay was
| politically motivated, but this article is a political hit
| piece through and through.
| avmich wrote:
| Sir, with all due respect - don't you think there could be
| different meanings for the term "administration"?
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Absolutely, but in the context used here the author is
| trying to absolve Biden of responsibility. Could/should
| Biden have done something to bring them back sooner? I
| don't know, but it _is_ a government organization under his
| command.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| I can't tell if this is downvoted because I upset someone
| in sorry if the the left or the right. I don't think what
| I said is untrue in any sense?
| foldr wrote:
| I think it's downvoted because you seem to be suggesting
| that Joe Biden could have have overridden the decision
| making process led by domain experts at NASA. While in
| theory the President _could_ do that, it would be a silly
| thing to do.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Well yes, I was suggesting exactly that.
|
| I'm pretty sure I'm correct, and that you are too: the
| president could theoretically do that. Or, in the very
| least, strongly influence decisions made by NASA.
|
| I'm also saying that the NASA _is_ part of President
| Biden's administration, as the "NASA Administrator" at
| the time, Bill Nelson, was actually nominated by
| President Biden.
|
| ---
|
| But maybe I'm wrong and the downvoters could elaborate as
| to how and why?
| foldr wrote:
| The President could theoretically muck around with
| decision making in all kinds of federal agencies. That
| doesn't mean that the President's administration is
| responsible for every technical decision made by every
| agency. If the NTSB fails to correctly identify the cause
| of an air accident, is that the President's fault because
| the President nominates the board? Most people wouldn't
| think so. They realise that as the President isn't an
| expert at investigating air accidents, it doesn't make
| sense for the President to interfere directly with the
| agency that investigates them.
| 93po wrote:
| Interesting to complain about partisan politics and then write
| an extremely partisan article
| gustavoamigo wrote:
| The decision to make this political and partisan came from
| the Trump administration, the response to that is obviously
| political and it is natural that it would come from someone
| that is not a Trump supporter.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| Yes, only the in-group is allowed to be partisan. And break
| the law with no consequences.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| That DOES seem to be the rule for the right in the USA.
| Democrats still get kicked out of the club when they do
| blatant crimes and carry around bags of gold bars.
| cman1444 wrote:
| How would it be possible to critique these partisan comments
| by Trump and Musk _without_ writing an article like this?
|
| What would you have preferred they said?
| nailer wrote:
| Sounds like Eric is trying to create a narrative himself -
| elevating a comment from below:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43411627
| peeters wrote:
| > They liked the "Artemis Program" created by the Trump
| administration well enough that they simply kept it.
|
| This cannot be overstated. Prior to Biden there was a long
| history of new administrations of both parties coming in and
| wanting to make their mark on NASA. Everyone wanted to be what
| JFK was to the moon race, which meant that whatever the
| previous guy came up with obviously had to be canned and
| replaced, so that the new thing would be their thing. NASA was
| jerked around for decades. You can't do 15 year projects if
| they're always cancelled after 8 years.
|
| Biden coming in and simply continuing Trump's plan broke the
| trend. And yet Trump still needed to find a bone to pick to
| advance his cult of personality.
| lurker_jMckQT99 wrote:
| The drone footage is absolutely amazing (as compared to any other
| camera angle from the recovery boat where you would expect to
| have better quality but was actually awful). I had trouble, for a
| moment, believing that it was not CGIed.
|
| Is there any information about what drone/camera equipment was
| used?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| It won't play for me. Has it been uploaded anywhere else?
| stanac wrote:
| I had the same problem with FF. Try using a chromium browser
| in incognito mode or with all extensions disabled.
| lurker_jMckQT99 wrote:
| youtube, probably elsewhere as well
| weberer wrote:
| Here's the source
|
| https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1902026377685295527
| scotty79 wrote:
| Parachutes were majestic
| sfjailbird wrote:
| Those damned dolphins were the icing on the cake.
| Pinegulf wrote:
| Can't we just be happy that the astronauts made it safely back?
| (+ ignore the political spin from all factions.)
| keepamovin wrote:
| I'm certainly happy. Gravity, however, appeared distinctly
| displeased.
| foldr wrote:
| There's only one faction trying to put a political spin on
| this. This isn't a "both sides" issue.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| In all of this, one thing is left unsaid: why were they marooned
| in orbit in the first place?
|
| It seems to me that Boeing might be happy to be forgotten at this
| time.
|
| As an outsider and a cynic to boot, seems to me that corporate
| profits might trump Trump and his rhetoric.
| tw1984 wrote:
| can they sue NASA for compensation?
| RandomBacon wrote:
| Anyone can file a lawsuit against anyone for any reason,
| doesn't mean they will win or it won't be summarily dismissed.
| I doubt the Astronauts have enough money to fund such a lawsuit
| while becoming some of the most hated people in America.
| yard2010 wrote:
| > Kate Tice, an engineer from SpaceX on the webcast, noted that
| touchdown was imminent. "We're going to stand by for splashdown
| located in the Gulf of America," she said. Ah, yes. The Gulf of
| America. This is why we can't have nice things.
|
| Haha you got to love the timeline we're living at.
| bradhe wrote:
| I would like a different timeline, please.
| lstolcman wrote:
| _" I wish it need not have happened in my time"_ said Frodo.
|
| _" So do I,"_ said Gandalf, _" and so do all who live to see
| such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have
| to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."_
| DSingularity wrote:
| What if the others were terminated by nuclear war?
| scotty79 wrote:
| According to modern sensibilities that would make us
| incredibly unlucky.
| derektank wrote:
| This only seems plausible if your subscribe to
| Anthroponuclear Multiple Worlds Theory
|
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/history-is-weird
| SecretDreams wrote:
| No new timeline for you!
| weregiraffe wrote:
| Why, a gulf is not a nice thing?
| chrisweekly wrote:
| > "The name of the Gulf of Mexico became a subject of dispute
| in 2025, when U.S. president Donald Trump signed Executive
| Order 14172, directing the U.S. interior secretary to change
| its name to the "Gulf of America" within the U.S. federal
| government. As of February 2025, the majority of Americans
| oppose the change.[1] The gulf has been known as the Gulf of
| Mexico since the 1550s,[2] having derived its name from
| Mexica, the Nahuatl term for the Aztecs.[3]"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico%E2%80%93Ameri.
| ..
| v3ss0n wrote:
| Hate all you want to Elon, you still need to credit to credit
| due.SpaceX did awesome Job.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I don't think Elon really had that much to do with this.
| double051 wrote:
| Besides making any of this possible?
| SecretDreams wrote:
| With his bare hands and mind, no less!
| amelius wrote:
| While running his other two companies (Tesla, X), being in
| charge of DOGE, and making political statements on stages
| everywhere, AND taking care of his 14 children ... I don't
| think he was actually involved in this. Or maybe he was
| there in the mission control room, physically, just for
| kicks, and annoying the hell out of the engineers. Now that
| I find somewhat likely.
| theultdev wrote:
| Yeah must be all of his companies have good employees and
| all his competitors companies have terrible employees.
|
| Nothing to do with the CEO or the company culture. Sort
| of like Apple, Jobs was probably just annoying his
| engineers all the time and contributed nothing.
|
| /s
| doug_durham wrote:
| That is exactly what is going on. Boeing doesn't have
| Gwenn Shotwell. She's the one making SpaceX operate.
| redeeman wrote:
| and why dont they?
| eagerpace wrote:
| Not only did they deliver the commercial crew contract faster
| than Boeing, they did it for a much lower cost.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| Before he took his recent (regrettable) turn he _did_ pour
| his heart and soul (and personal fortune) into SpaceX for
| over a decade. If it weren 't for SpaceX we'd be relying on
| the incompetent monstrosities of Boeing or ULA.
| ta1243 wrote:
| It seemed to all start going wrong with "pedo guy". Before
| then Musk was doing great things at Tesla and SpaceX.
|
| After that he started getting more and more unhinged,
| leading through to buying twitter, then trying to get out
| of it, then doubling down.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Don't abuse ketamine, kids.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| And love your kids, folks.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Or at least don't hate them and then become convinced
| there are global conspiracies...
| TomK32 wrote:
| Watch out and make sure your rocket doesn't explode to
| early.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| If Elon recognized that he had the social skills of an
| NPC and had hired a PR team, we would probably all still
| adore him and likely he would still just be doing
| engineering company stuff.
|
| Take heed, if you have money, power, and poor social
| skills, hire people to manage it for you.
| grandiego wrote:
| Sad world where people expects successful people to hire
| a PR team just to be liked.
| OKRainbowKid wrote:
| Not as sad as a world in which Billionaires actively and
| shamelessly use their power to rebuild the government on
| their favor and spread misinformation, populism and hate
| globally their own media platforms.
| amluto wrote:
| Only if one insists on talking/tweeting all the time.
| Plenty of business leaders do just fine by mostly keeping
| their mouths shut.
| timschmidt wrote:
| Ah, so, just like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Quiet_Place
|
| What was the genre of that film again?
| andrepd wrote:
| He could, however, not give a fuck about whether he is
| liked or not, which is certainly what I would do if I had
| 400,000,000,000$ of fuck you money. But being what would
| in rude terms would be described as an "attention whore",
| he instead spends his time making insane tweets and
| pretending to be good at videogames in order to impress a
| bunch of adolescent boys. It's almost sad.
| zzzeek wrote:
| try being a billionaire and you'll note "being liked"
| becomes a vastly heavier lift
| TomK32 wrote:
| I don't, but I expect a powerful person to have the
| foresight to have not just Yes men around them and listen
| to advice/voices that give them counter points to what
| they want to blurb out before they blurb it out.
| majormajor wrote:
| Mostly people expects successful people to just live
| their lives.
|
| Musk is DESPERATE to be adored and DESPERATE for
| influence and power outside the scope of his success.
|
| Those are personal failings, not the failings of society.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| For me all he had to do was not openly be a genocidal
| white supremacist. Maybe he needs a crew to help him with
| that, but I think there's something about that that's a
| bit more than "poor social skills" and I'm sick of
| pretending that me not knowing what to say to people at
| funerals is the same as him delivering multiple Nazi
| salutes at the presidential inauguration.
| kernal wrote:
| You sound like you have a severe case of Elon Delusional
| Syndrome and Trump Delusional Syndrome. I suggest you see
| a doctor to help you through the difficult time you're
| having. Also, can you tell your fellow domestic
| terrorists to stop fire bombing and shooting Tesla's and
| their stores?
| majormajor wrote:
| The temerity of the whole TDS bullshit is the most
| obvious proof of an astounding lack of self-awareness on
| the right. Here the people obsessed with Obama around
| baseless internet memes for 8 years, who were clutching
| their pearls over Clinton having an affair, who stuck
| stickers of Biden on gas pumps for years, who now have
| latched onto "domestic terrorism" as their new favorite
| phrase, think dislike of Trump is some unique thing
| affecting just the "other team."
|
| All you have to do is listen to Trump speak to realize
| he's fairly unique in quickly-obviouly-un-American ways
| among recent US Presidents.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| It's not a lack of self-awareness, it's a purposeful
| muddying of the waters. It's making being angry at a nazi
| salute the same as being angry at a tan suit:
| meaningless. These people aren't stupid. You can tell
| because what they do works.
| pyrale wrote:
| I believe he has pretty good social skills, he managed to
| fly under the radar as a public figure for long enough,
| until he was powerful enough to no longer need to give a
| fuck.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| His work history doesn't exactly say "pretty good social
| skills"
|
| If he'd had better social skills, he wouldn't have been
| fired from x.com and made even more money from PayPal.
| pyrale wrote:
| Paypal is a good example actually: convincing enough to
| get named ceo, but gets kicked out once his partners get
| to the bottom of it.
| sambeau wrote:
| He _had_ a PR team. It all started to go wrong after he
| fired his PR team.
| thijson wrote:
| I think something similar happened to Tom Cruise several
| years ago.
| redeeman wrote:
| far from everyone would agree its going wrong
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| This is more a consequence of doing _all_ the drugs.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| > It seemed to all start going wrong with "pedo guy".
| Before then Musk was doing great things at Tesla and
| SpaceX.
|
| If you read the Isaacson biography of him, it seems like
| he's always been like this.
| exodust wrote:
| > _recent (regrettable) turn_
|
| It's only regrettable through the lens of partisan
| politics. DOGE is undeniably a good concept.
|
| You will notice governments around the world copying the
| method. That is, launching initiatives to audit everything,
| cut wasteful spending, expose corrupt spending, and trim
| bureaucratic inefficiency via external oversight. It would
| be regrettable _not_ to undertake the task.
| yibg wrote:
| Audit -> glance at program names to decide if they are
| worthy or not?
|
| Cut wasteful spending -> things Musk doesn't like? Or
| people responsible for safely handling nuclear waste?
|
| Expose corrupt spending -> would be nice to get a report
| of this
|
| Trim bureaucratic inefficiency -> like firing people and
| then having to hire them back?
|
| I can get behind the concept of DOGE. But that's not what
| DOGE is actually doing.
| chris_va wrote:
| Maybe
|
| Audit committees have been around forever, because people
| think they are a good concept. A large fraction of the
| (time) cost in government (or dealing with the
| government) is dealing with initiatives to audit
| everything, and cut wasteful spending.
|
| Not to say that eliminating waste isn't a good concept,
| but do not conflate the _idea_ of eliminating waste with
| any one particular implementation.
| gwill wrote:
| There are no audits, there are no reports, there is
| little to no transparency with DOGE. They're gutting
| first, thinking later and it's costing us a ton. How can
| you trust an administration to expose corrupt spending
| when they freeze the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?
| tverbeure wrote:
| Adding "undeniably" to a sentence doesn't magically make
| it so.
| imglorp wrote:
| DOGE saving effectiveness has been questioned.
| https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-
| overstates...
|
| Of the $6.8T budget, $55B (or whatever is the truth)
| would amount to less than 0.9% of spending.
| https://usafacts.org/articles/this-chart-tells-you-
| everythin...
|
| Anyway, we have a Government Accounting Office already
| which is highly critical of waste. If anyone was earnest,
| they'd send them more resources.
|
| On the other hand, if someone wanted to cripple every
| infrastructure, institution, and agency across the board
| in order to cause chaos, without transparency,
| accountability, and compliance, then DOGE is super
| effective!
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| The types of waste, fraud, and abuse matter as much as
| the scale. Even just a "little" (5%-10%) corruption is a
| moral stain on the whole thing.
|
| As it is, that "small" corruption is funding an extensive
| network of NGOs, nonprofits run by the families of people
| in government, media, etc. -- all to (a) keep a ton of
| money flowing to people in Washington DC and (b) protect
| that status quo.
|
| Politics aside, widespread corruption in the US capitol
| should be taken very seriously.
|
| Presidential administrations have been repeatedly trying
| to deal with the sheer behemoth bureaucracy, the growing
| power of unelected officials, and all the associated
| corruption since the early 1960s and so far have been
| defeated every time (see JFK's comments on the CIA for
| one example; there are also videos of Obama and Biden
| trying to address it during Obama's presidency). Each
| time it wins again, it grows stronger and more
| entrenched.
|
| Our partisan attitude is understandable: our tribal
| wiring seems to make us gravitate towards "us/them"
| thinking and to cheer when "their" side loses. But
| doesn't the DC bureaucracy represent a common enemy to
| those on either side who value democracy?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| > Even just a "little" (5%-10%) corruption is a moral
| stain on the whole thing.
|
| Timeless: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-
| amount-of-fra...
|
| How about let's solve problems practically instead of
| having trillion dollar decisions made in the name of
| virtue signaling about "moral purity."
|
| > But doesn't the DC bureaucracy represent a common enemy
| to those on either side who value democracy?
|
| Uh, no. USAID etc. have money because our elected
| representatives gave it money, as prescribed by the
| Constitution which governs our country.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > as prescribed by the Constitution
|
| The constitution doesn't mention anything about any
| federal agencies. The Department of State didn't even
| exist until a 1789 law signed by George Washington.
|
| USAID was established by the Foreign Assistance Act of
| 1961. Its express purpose is to fund U.S. foreign
| economic and humanitarian assistance programs.
|
| If the majority of USAID money is going towards things
| that do _not_ align with the law that governs it, would
| you say that fits somewhere under the umbrella of
| "waste, fraud, and abuse"?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Congress controls the budget, it really is that simple.
|
| If I believe USAID is full of waste, fraud, and abuse,
| I'm free to express that at the ballot box where I vote
| for a congressperson who wishes to vote on the next
| budget accordingly.
|
| The executive has many dimensions of freedom with regard
| to federal agencies. "Existence of" and "funding of" are
| not among those dimensions of freedom.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > The executive has many dimensions of freedom with
| regard to federal agencies. "Existence of" and "funding
| of" are not among those dimensions of freedom.
|
| I don't think the current administration actually
| abolished USAID or its funding; it just froze outgoing
| transfers from it. Some of the verbage used by Musk &
| others is exaggerated. They're playing to their voter
| base, unfortunately. It doesn't accurately describe what
| is technically or legally happening.
| majormajor wrote:
| Elected officials lying about what they are doing seems
| bad, by your line of thought about fraud and
| accountability and all.
|
| Unelected ones - worse still?
|
| The unsurprisingly-ignored central sin of the Trump
| administration for those who voted for it for reasons of
| "free speech" or "reducing government corruption" or
| "accountability" is that Trump and his circle _do not
| actually believe in any of those things and are not
| acting in ways consistent with any of those priciples._
| Those are just the things they say to get votes so they
| can grab all the power they can.
|
| Anyone opposed to government waste or corruption should
| be beating down the door to get Republicans to impeach
| Trump because he's trying to create a whole hell of a lot
| of corruption-and-waste-enabling precedents.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > lying about what they are doing seems bad
|
| Yeah, I _hate_ that. Their talk is closer to WWE guys in
| the ring (at least on X) than the thoughtful orators
| whose pictures line the oval office. There 's no
| thoughtful, careful, wise poise about it. There are many
| others like me who also dislike how things are said, but
| we look back at the actions taken (not words said) and
| are a lot more happy with them than we are with Biden's
| actions (or lack thereof).
|
| > whole hell of a lot of corruption-and-waste-enabling
| precedents
|
| Could you elaborate? I'm curious to know specifics you'd
| call out as examples.
| majormajor wrote:
| Corruption-enablement signs:
|
| from this week, lawyerballing on reasons to ignore
| judicial decisions they don't like
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-hear-arguments-trump-
| adminis...
|
| here we just call for impeachment of judges who rule
| against us https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-
| federal-judges-impea... - "at a certain point, you have
| to start looking at what do you do when you have a rogue
| judge." - what else you got in mind, exactly, Donald?
|
| and obviously there's the whole impoundment thing we've
| just been talking about - the executive blatantly
| ignoring a law that restricted that. should be trivial to
| imagine ways THAT could be misused.
|
| Musk's entire role is pretty suspect - where was the
| Senate confirmation hearing or law authorizing the
| delegation of power to him? where is the authority over
| departments headed by actual cabinet members beyond
| "Trump said so"?
|
| another big flashing warning sign is RFK and the CDC re-
| opening the vaccines/autism thing. wouldn't it be curious
| if suddenly a new study contradicts decades of research
| there? seems a bit wasteful to re-litigate unless you
| have reason to believe you'll get the result you want,
| not the one the numbers have been pointing to...
|
| What are the _good_ actions? Laying people off to save
| pennies off the budget? Promising tax cuts to enlarge the
| national deficit? Renaming shit?
|
| (EDIT: another big corruption-enablement thing would be
| deciding the FCC is the "let's police speech i don't
| like" department.)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > and obviously there's the whole impoundment thing we've
| just been talking about - the executive blatantly
| ignoring a law that restricted that
|
| The law didn't restrict it, the Constitution prohibits it
| without law allowing it. The Impoundment Control Act
| provided a limited allowance for impoundment, rather than
| actually curtailing it.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| The term you're looking for is "impoundment."
|
| They impounded funding. That's exactly what they're doing
| and it's exactly what's illegal.
|
| Glad you don't dispute Congress's Constitutional role
| though!
| acdha wrote:
| > Presidential administrations have been repeatedly
| trying to deal with the sheer behemoth bureaucracy, the
| growing power of unelected officials, and all the
| associated corruption since the early 1960s and so far
| have been defeated every time
|
| Clinton cut the size of the government considerably -
| 400k federal workers! - but you probably didn't hear a
| lot about it because it was a thoughtful process designed
| not to impact the ability of the government, and because
| it undercuts the narrative that Democrats increase
| spending which is popular in right-wing propaganda. What
| DOGE is doing locks in as much cost and disruption as
| possible while minimizing benefits because that's not the
| actual goal (scoring political points against what's
| perceived as a democratic stronghold).
| imglorp wrote:
| Citizens United v FEC is probably the fattest root cause
| of it. Of course, no one on the gravy train will vote to
| limit their own bribery.
| mlyle wrote:
| People spending money in ways that you consider wasteful
| is not the same as corruption.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| How much fraud and abuse has to occur before it's able to
| be labeled as "corruption"?
|
| Fraud literally means intentional lying in accounting or
| other financial representations, for the purpose of
| improperly benefiting someone. If people in government
| are benefited directly or indirectly by fraud, that's
| literally included in the definition of corruption.
| mlyle wrote:
| What a long gallop.
|
| > If people in government are benefited directly or
| indirectly by fraud, that's literally included in the
| definition of corruption.
|
| Yup, that endpoint is fine and can be agreed with.
|
| People in government having a job doing something you
| think isn't useful isn't corruption, though. And if a few
| percent of the money their program spends is wasted or
| benefits other people through fraud-- that's not
| corruption either.
|
| And the blanket cuts, layoffs, offers for voluntary
| separation /early retirement, and contract cancellations
| don't seem to be aimed at the thing we agree is
| corruption.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > People in government having a job doing something you
| think isn't useful isn't corruption, though
|
| I didn't say anything about that; I don't think I know
| enough yet to have a fully formed opinion.
|
| But I do think that the overly powerful DC bureaucracy,
| DC NGOs, and corruption that holds it together is a
| worthy common enemy for all of us - that's what I'm
| trying to point out.
|
| I'm actually amazed at Democrats' position on this. I
| grew up in a Democratic family... We used to be the anti-
| establishment party! JFK was a Democrat - and he's the
| one who was apparently taken out by the CIA because he
| said he was going to destroy it. It used to be
| Republicans who wanted to keep the institutional status
| quo in DC.
|
| Either way, I think a pro-Democracy attitude will oppose
| growing power of unelected officials, regardless of
| political leanings.
| alxjrvs wrote:
| > Either way, I think a pro-Democracy attitude will
| oppose growing power of unelected officials, regardless
| of political leanings.
|
| DOGE is headed by an unelected official, from a party
| with not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right
| now.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| DOGE headed by Elon Musk was one of Trump's foremost
| campaign promises.
|
| In terms of democracy, that is about as direct of an
| electoral mandate as possible.
|
| > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now
|
| How about having been duly elected in the ballot boxes?
| Being pro-democracy means accepting and implementing the
| will of the people.
|
| (Trump disputed the election results in 2020 because he
| believed there was widespread election fraud. That may be
| evidence he was deluded, but I don't think it's
| necessarily evidence of being anti-democracy in his
| leanings.)
| tzs wrote:
| > > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right
| now
|
| > How about having been duly elected by a landslide
| majority in ballot boxes?
|
| How is 49.8% a "landslide majority"?
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I stand corrected, thanks. Edited my comment.
| alxjrvs wrote:
| > I don't think it's necessarily evidence of being anti-
| democracy in his leanings.
|
| This is either willful ignorance or something else.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Moreover, where do people think corruption comes from?
|
| The human desire to be richer and the power to make it
| happen.
|
| Do people think Trump, Musk, and Thiel don't want to be
| richer?
|
| And worse, that the poorly-vetted people who have
| attached themselves to this administration don't?
|
| The idea that getting rid of fraud in a chaotic fashion
| is going to lead to less fraud is laughable, unless the
| assumption is also 'All of the people who are doing this
| are altruistic and moral.'
|
| If you create chaos at scale, you simply end up with
| different fraud.
|
| And you can quote me on this in 6 years when
| investigations begin to lead to trials...
|
| (Which, naturally, Republicans will claim are
| politically-motivated? But you know who complains loudest
| about the rule of law? People who do illegal things.)
| mlyle wrote:
| Musk has talked explicitly about unwinding portions of
| NASA and replacing it with SpaceX to "improve
| efficiency."
|
| Which honestly should happen to some extent (I'm not a
| fan of SLS). But we shouldn't become beholden to one
| vendor, and it's sure looking a lot more like removing
| options for the future and competition than a play for
| efficiency.
|
| And anyone doing this for their own companies in the past
| would be a _textbook_ example of corruption.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| People forget that Boeing space was an excellent
| engineering company at one point.
|
| One of the things that fucked it up was decades of cost-
| plus government work.
|
| Companies become the most profitable versions of
| themselves the market allows them to be... which without
| competition usually doesn't bode well for excellence.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Do people think Trump, Musk, and Thiel don't want to be
| richer?
|
| FYI, lots of dumb people actually DO believe that. "Oh
| they have so much money already" they say. They don't
| even attempt to square that with collecting more
| resources than some Gods, for, reasons.
| sophacles wrote:
| Others have asked, and I'm going to ask: Prove the fraud.
| That is a specific charge, with a specific meaning - as
| you point out yourself in your comment.
|
| Pointing to money that was spent differently than you
| think it should be is not fraud, no matter how much you
| want to claim it.
|
| Pointing to money being spent in suboptimal ways is not
| fraud. Maybe it's waste - but often it's what the law
| calls for (aka definitionally the opposite of fraud).
|
| Yelling very loudly about how it's all fraud and waste is
| not proof. It doesn't matter how loudly you yell.
|
| Repeating "there's so much fraud, omg, fraud everywhere,
| soooo much fraud" over and over is not proof. Even if
| your repetitions would make an animated gif jealous.
|
| Actually prove the fraud: Show that the money was spent
| in a way different than proscribed by law, that the
| people authorizing the spending were lying, and there was
| direct enrichment of someone via those lies and
| misspending. It's not hard if of it around.
| isx726552 wrote:
| > fraud
|
| Prove it.
|
| They keep saying "fraud" without proof of anything other
| than just spending they disagree with. Spending, I might
| add, which was previously duly authorized by Congress.
|
| The use of the word "fraud" is a smoke screen. To
| unquestioningly accept it is to be complicit in their
| lies. And that's what they're doing: lying.
|
| If there really is fraud, let's see it prosecuted via due
| process, like it should be. The fact that that isn't
| happening speaks volumes.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > Prove it.
|
| No one can "prove" anything without a clear goalpost that
| doesn't move :) That being said, there is evidence I can
| present from the past. Here are a couple of cases:
|
| - https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/chemonics-
| internatio...
|
| - https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/usaid-
| suspends...
|
| Also, not exactly "fraud" in the accounting sense, but
| there is a slew of NGOs that purport to support foreign
| aid, but most of the money is paid to people in DC. Only
| about $5B/yr actually went from USAID to directly meet
| needs in other countries:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/opinion/us-foreign-
| aid.ht...
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Someone makes concrete allegations of massive fraud and
| then uses those allegations as justification for huge
| funding cuts. Folks ask for evidence of the fraud
| justifying these cuts. They are instead given evidence of
| _the existence of some different fraud that occurred some
| point in the past_.
|
| If you don't see how problematic that is, then why not
| just avoid the discussion in the first place?
| caycep wrote:
| Agreed, and in addition, DOGE is also on the path to be
| guilty of mass murder, given than historians widely
| consider Mao guilty of the famine from the Great Leap
| Forward, and projected deaths from their policies are
| beginning to be tabulated.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/fo
| rei...
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-rubio-
| usaid-mu...
| nervmodem wrote:
| Mass murder? Jesus on a pogo stick mate get a grip.
| acdha wrote:
| I would suggest reading the links. You can question the
| scale but suddenly disrupting food and medical aid is
| profoundly disruptive and will have generational impacts
| if it's not reversed or others don't step in to fill the
| gap.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| The irony of billionaires deciding it's a waste of money
| to feed people and prevent AIDS pandemics is lost on
| some.
| acdha wrote:
| Yes, it is wild to me to see how PEPFAR was for years
| held up as the Republican's flagship foreign program but
| so few were willing to speak up to defend it.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Morals are only really morals when it's difficult to
| suppport them, and people still do.
|
| I think the Republican party nowadays is proof that most
| of them are chickenshit and care more about their job
| than doing the right thing.
|
| Props those who made the hard choices. https://en.m.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_trial_of_...
| bitcoin_anon wrote:
| There is a difference between cutting back on aid to
| other countries and a leader starving his own subjects.
| slater wrote:
| > DOGE is undeniably a good concept.
|
| On paper.
| caycep wrote:
| it's barely on paper and likely unconstitutional
| slater wrote:
| no disagreement from me!
| MattGrommes wrote:
| Yes, of course it's a good concept. The problem is then
| giving the execution of the concept to arrogant people
| who are completely ignorant of what they're cutting. Then
| when they ignore the law, to double-down and keep
| pushing. The partisan politics come in when people cheer
| for wanton destruction because it's their side doing it.
| caycep wrote:
| it's as good of a concept as giving your checkbook to the
| Nigerian prince to be balanced, instead of to your local
| accredited accountant.
| swsieber wrote:
| It's a wonderful concept, but the implementation plan,
| the execution and the results are all terrible.
|
| I'm all for audits, reducing waste, transparency, etc.,
| not wanton firing and publicity stunts.
| jcranmer wrote:
| If your goal is cutting waste in the government, DOGE is
| absolutely the _worst possible way_ to do it.
|
| The idea of bringing in a bunch of "whiz kids" who know
| absolutely nothing about the departments they're auditing
| [1], axing people arbitrarily (i.e., firing seemingly
| everybody who is "probationary"), and cutting programs
| seemingly purely by Ctrl-F'ing for keywords without even
| bothering to figure out if the keyword even means what
| you're looking for in context is absolute clown shoes for
| good governance.
|
| The fact that they're breaking all sorts of laws in the
| process makes it even worse; and to top it off, they
| can't even bring themselves to be honest to the courts
| about who is responsible for their actions.
|
| No, DOGE is undeniably a _rotten_ concept from inception
| to practice.
|
| [1] Seemingly flummoxed by the existence of things like
| sentinel values in databases for "we don't know," based
| on some of the "fraud" they've very loudly proclaimed.
| dionian wrote:
| Congress doesnt seem to be exposing the waste that DOGE
| is. A rose by any other name is just as sweet
| majormajor wrote:
| > Congress doesnt seem to be exposing the waste that DOGE
| is. A rose by any other name is just as sweet
|
| So you _aren 't_ actually opposed to waste or corruption?
| Since corruption in the purpose of getting rid of things
| you personally find wasteful is fine with you? You just
| want the big bad scary government to employ less people?
| But the ones the executive does employ should be able to
| do whatever they want, laws be damned?
|
| Where do you REALLY think that ends?
| tzs wrote:
| > You will notice governments around the world copying
| the method. That is, launching initiatives to audit
| everything,
|
| Which is it? Are they copying DOGE or are they auditing
| things, because what DOGE is doing is not auditing.
| Auditing involves bringing in people who understand what
| they are looking at.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| > It's only regrettable through the lens of partisan
| politics. DOGE is undeniably a good concept.
|
| I'm actually a fan of that too. His issue is that he
| causes controversy where none is needed.
| timewizard wrote:
| > he did pour his heart and soul
|
| And you have this knowledge, how?
|
| > (and personal fortune) into SpaceX for over a decade.
|
| Using paypal money to chase government contract money.
|
| > If it weren't for SpaceX we'd be relying on the
| incompetent monstrosities of Boeing or ULA.
|
| That does not automatically follow. It's entirely possible
| that a company better than all of them might now exist if
| SpaceX didn't.
| avhon1 wrote:
| Eric Berger, senior space editor for Ars Technica [0],
| has written two books about Elon Musk and his role at
| SpaceX:
|
| Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That
| Launched SpaceX [1]
|
| Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that
| Launched a Second Space Age [2]
|
| [0] https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/
|
| [1] https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liftoff-eric-
| berger?v...
|
| [2] https://benbellabooks.com/shop/reentry/
| culi wrote:
| SpaceX is and always has been funded by NASA. Congress
| simply doesn't allow NASA to do its own missions any more
| so it's been forced to add a middle man where it pays
| private companies to use its technology, infrastructure,
| and money to do the work it wishes it could do itself
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| As you said they're incompetent so it would be Russia more
| like. Imagine the bizarre situation that the US would be in
| while fighting a proxy war against them at the same time.
|
| Also in that alternative timeline, I wonder what that would
| do to Americans psychologically. If China and Russia had
| already beat the US in space, the decline would be
| extremely obvious. To the rest of the world as well.
| robotnikman wrote:
| This right here. It was 99% the work of all the amazing
| engineers and support staff at SpaceX, all who deserve more
| credit.
| fixprix wrote:
| He had everything to do with it. If you can't tell by now, he
| wants to be involved in _everything_. Recognizing good ideas
| from bad ones and empowering the right engineers to do it is
| everything. Look at any of SpaceX 's competitors or even
| other countries space programs to see what poor leadership
| looks like.
| carabiner wrote:
| In general, we selectively credit the engineers when a musk
| company has a success, then blame musk when there's a
| failure. So when Teslas have quality issues, we don't blame
| the manufacturing engineers and technicians; instead, we
| blame Musk who hand assembled every Tesla out there, right?
| nailer wrote:
| Elon Musk is the CEO and founder of SpaceX
| bsdice wrote:
| Compared to the very first test, everything worked better and
| looked greased. From the HD drone footage (via Starlink I
| presume), to the fast arriving boats, quick hypergolic fuel
| leak checks, roping up, loading onto ship, retrieving crew,
| going home.
|
| Only thing missing really is landing on land and crew
| offboarding just like that by themselves.
| fracus wrote:
| What does one have to do with the other?
| timewizard wrote:
| > Hate all you want to Elon, you still need to credit to credit
| due.
|
| Under no circumstances will I agree that "Elon rescued" anyone
| or anything. The guy has a fetish to be seen as a rescuer. It's
| unseemly.
|
| > SpaceX did awesome Job.
|
| Fulfilling a contract they've executed several times before?
| _slow clap_
| stellar678 wrote:
| > Fulfilling a contract they've executed several times
| before? slow clap
|
| More than you can say for the Boeing launch that took the
| astronauts up last summer.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Yes in some sense, but they did provide additional rides to
| cover Boeing's shortfall on a short timeline.
|
| The ability to ramp up services on short notice is not
| flexibility traditional space companies offer. Ex, if NASA
| begged Boeing for an extra SLS launch this year, they simply
| could not do it.
| gigatexal wrote:
| This one failure to return astronauts means spacex will replace
| nasa and that's insane
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| SpaceX doesn't exist without NASA. And without SpaceX NASA
| would be still stuck in the 90s. It is a mutually beneficial
| relationship and clearly benefits the US.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Elon anywhere near power is bad for everyone and everything.
| lordfrito wrote:
| By any reasonable definition, these astronauts were stranded. If
| people can be stranded in an airport due to a plane being
| grounded, then they can be stranded on a space station for the
| same reason. I mean, _they 're in orbit_, it's not like they
| could simply walk home.
|
| The mental gymnastics on display in this thread reminds me of the
| Narcissists Prayer. The astronauts weren't
| stranded in space for 9 months. And if they were, they
| were lucky and enjoyed their extended vacation. And if
| they didn't, it's not a big deal it comes with the job.
| And if it is a big deal, it's not Nasa's/Boeings fault.
| And if it was, it's not political. And if it is, Elon
| shouldn't be credited for SpaceX bringing them back. And
| if he should, he doesn't deserve it.
|
| Personally I'm just glad seeing them come home. The stakes are
| real, lives are at risk, families impacted. Didn't one of the
| astronauts miss his 30-year wedding anniversary?
| libertine wrote:
| > The stakes are real, lives are at risk, families impacted.
|
| So let's keep in mind the risk and sacrifices these people make
| throughout their lives, only to have Elon at any moment
| accusing them of being traitors.[0]
|
| [0]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/elon-musk-calls-
| ma...
| enragedcacti wrote:
| They have had a completely normal emergency evacuation plan
| since 9/24/24, if they were ever "stranded" it was before that
| when they would have had to use the Crew-8 Dragon in an
| abnormal configuration.
|
| Is any astronaut who stays longer than planned "stranded"? Did
| Elon strand Crew-9 when SpaceX missed their deadline on
| building the Crew-10 Dragon?
|
| Or is it just if you can't go home whenever you want? _Are
| Crew-10 stranded right now?!?! Elon please help!!!!!_
| lordfrito wrote:
| Again, if your aircraft is grounded you would consider
| yourself stranded at an airport until you could schedule and
| board alternate means of travel. Even though you could rent a
| car and drive 2000 miles, you're much more likely to wait 1
| day for a new flight instead of adding 4 days of travel time.
| And during that day of wait you'd considered yourself
| stranded, even though you could walk right out of the airport
| at any time. Emergency options exist, like calling an
| ambulance, but it doesn't change the fact you're still
| stranded. You kids would be complaining endlessly about being
| stranded in an airport for one day, let alone 9 months.
|
| If you're on a cruise ship that loses power on high seas,
| just because you can get into the the emergency life boats
| doesn't mean you aren't stranded until something more
| reasonable and accommodating arrives.
|
| That's the way the word is used in casual conversation.
|
| What's so wrong about calling the crew stranded? Their
| planned means of travel was "grounded" due to safety issues.
| Sure, lifeboats existed, but those are for emergencies. This
| wasn't an emergency. So, they're just regular "stranded"
| until another vehicle can come and do an unscheduled pickup.
| Which is what happened here.
|
| This isn't rocket science people. Wait, actually it is :)
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Sure, fine. I think "stuck" is more accurate as stranded
| imo has an implication of there not being a concrete plan
| in action but thinking about it more my primary issue isn't
| the word choice but the blatant lies about plan and
| timelines from trump and musk.
|
| > "The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2
| astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as
| possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden
| administration left them there so long." -Musk
|
| > "I have just asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to 'go get' the 2
| brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space
| by the Biden Administration" -Trump
|
| To say these things and then continue with the exact plan
| that has already been in place since September is absurd
| regardless of the accuracy of the wording.
| lordfrito wrote:
| > Is any astronaut who stays longer than planned "stranded"?
|
| If the reason they're staying longer than planned is they
| can't use their planned return spacecraft, then yes they are
| stranded.
|
| What am I missing here?
| enragedcacti wrote:
| I don't see why the planned return craft has anything to do
| with being trapped somewhere. If my yacht runs aground on a
| deserted island and I choose not to leave on the perfectly
| functional dinghy to an island town 5 miles away, am I
| stranded?
| russdill wrote:
| The issue is the definition. "Stranded" can be made to mean a
| wide range of things. In this case it's clear from Trump and
| Musk's statements that they mean it as "abandoned" and in need
| of rescue. While you could argue that their situation could be
| described as stranded, they clearly were not abandoned or in
| need of rescue.
| TomK32 wrote:
| There are much worse places to wait for a flight home. How Trump
| and Musk acted is just ridiculous and maybe shows that the are
| missing the bigger picture in complex situations or lack people
| close to them whole tell them that an action might be a useless
| publicity stunt or worse have negative impacts further down the
| road.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| > How Trump and Musk acted is just ridiculous
|
| That depends on if the astronauts' return mission _was_ delayed
| by the previous regime that controlled NASA. It seems like a
| pretty rational (if unethical) move for Biden 's team to
| attempt to delay things to avoid giving his political rivals a
| big PR victory. Honestly though, any conversation to that
| effect would have happened behind closed doors and I doubt that
| even Musk knows exactly why they decided to delay things.
| TomK32 wrote:
| > regime that controlled NASA
|
| As far as I know the political regime of the USA was a
| democratic one last year.
|
| The PR victory of a returning two astronauts (one of which
| called space her "happy place"[1]) who didn't take the ride
| home on a leaky capsule is rather minute and not worth a
| movie like the Apollo 13 mission. When them staying up longer
| NASA actually might have gotten more stuff done than if they
| didn't, even with Crew 10 starting with two empty seats in
| September.
|
| The whole thing isn't as bad as Trump ordering the release of
| water in Northern California, but once more it shows that he
| wants to things purely for show with no regards to the
| consequences.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/ced019gne3no
| johndhi wrote:
| One thing I'm confused by is that we need to do "reporting" to
| figure out what the truth is here. Can't we just ask the
| astronauts, or NASA, or something? Why is there no official
| statement on the matter?
|
| There's actually a video of Butch, from the station, saying
| Musk's description was "entirely factual" - although he then sort
| of backtracked that. Seems like no one wants to outright explain
| what happened.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yeah, "no one wants to outright explain what happened" is
| called "chilling effects" and is one of the explicit goals of
| an authoritarian regime like the one we have in the US now.
|
| Nobody wants to get fired and get death threats just for
| speaking plainly, so most people don't. Every once in awhile
| someone will decide it's worth the cost, but most people most
| of the time will decide it isn't.
| nailer wrote:
| > authoritarian regime
|
| There was an election. Someone won. Someone lost. HN is not a
| place for baseless conspiracy theories. You've been here long
| enough to know better.
| sanderjd wrote:
| "Authoritarian" is a philosophy of how to govern. It is
| orthogonal to whether the government was fairly elected.
|
| (It's true that many authoritarian regimes seek to
| eliminate or corrupt elections, but being fairly elected is
| compatible with being authoritarian.)
| nailer wrote:
| "authoritarian regime" implies the governnent was not
| fairly elected and I think you probably know that.
| ttw44 wrote:
| I'm not sure if he's arguing that they were not fairly
| elected.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I'm definitely not! That was a weird leap by your parent
| commenter that has nothing to do with what I said.
| 1shooner wrote:
| This is an interesting misconception, I had never
| considered one would think authoritarians can't be fairly
| elected. Is the thinking that the electorate would just
| never elect an authoritarian?
| nailer wrote:
| The term was 'authoritarian regime', which is generally
| used for autocratic leaders.
|
| Although 'authoritarian' is also false - political
| freedoms for the general population are exactly where
| they were prior to the election, as I'm sure you are
| aware.
| 1shooner wrote:
| I guess I'm not nearly as sure of what others are aware
| of, so I'll just provide https://www.project2025.observer
| as a great resource for tracking actions of the current
| administration.
| nailer wrote:
| Project 2025 is a project from the Heritage foundation,
| there was a conspiracy during the election to say this
| was the platform of the Republican Party, the GOP
| platform is Agenda 47.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Dude, you really need to take the partisan blinders off.
|
| They are actively, and extremely obviously, executing on
| the Project 2025 plan, which they wrote up for exactly
| this reason. This is primarily being driven by Russell
| Vought, whose plan this is, through his role at the head
| of the Office of Management and Budget. There was no
| "conspiracy" about this, there was only a candidate who
| brazenly lied about his connection to that plan.
|
| Stop trying to gaslight us. We're not idiots, it won't
| work.
| nailer wrote:
| Yes there is, the idea that Project 2025 was the GOP
| platform is provably false. You can read Agenda 47
| yourself on the GOP website. The fake allegation relies
| on the fact that very few people will know to do that.
|
| As you believe Vought is conspiring and presumably that
| publishing Agenda 47 was also a conspiracy to hide a
| secret alternative platform, provide evidence of the
| conspiracy.
| sanderjd wrote:
| To your first sentence, again, I really think you just
| have these definitional questions wrong. You seem to be
| using a vibes-based reading of "authoritarian regime"
| rather than a "what the words mean" based reading.
|
| To your second paragraph: I'm not going to go into a
| bunch of examples of things the administration has done,
| though it would not be hard to do. I'll just reiterate
| that the thing this thread was originally about is the
| chilling effect that threats and intimidation has on
| people's speech. That is just an indirect way to infringe
| on the right to free expression.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Elections are one way of selecting government officials.
| Authoritarianism is a political philosophy that can be
| pursued no matter how one was selected. Yes, many/most
| authoritarians arise either not in democracies, or else
| in situations where the elections are mostly/entirely a
| sham, but that is not a requirement.
|
| You could, at least in principle, have an authoritarian
| surveillance state where the government watches and
| controls everything you do...and the people could
| consistently (and freely!) be electing the officials
| enacting that state. In other words, authoritarian and
| democracy/election are not antonyms.
| nailer wrote:
| you are not responding to the point about the phrase
| "authoritarian regime" which was the term used.
|
| Nevertheless, either possible assertion - that this is a
| single-party regime akin to Iraq or North Korea, or that
| the government is authoritarian, is both incredibly bold
| and evidently false.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| "regime" just means government. You are taking common
| associations and turning them into hard and fast rules
| when they aren't. "Biden regime" was a completely
| accurate (and frequently used) description of the last
| administration (and almost every other preceding
| administration).
|
| As for your second sentence, while it is often
| dramatically overstated, I think that Trump having
| authoritarian tendencies is pretty obviously true. The
| extent to which he has successfully instantiated those
| tendencies is up for considerable debate. I think the
| answer is probably not "not at all".
|
| In case it needs to be said, I think that almost every
| modern presidency has, (to quite varying extents) had
| some amount of authoritarian tendencies, in the sense
| that they have all sought to increase the unchecked power
| of the executive branch at the expense of both the other
| two branches, and the rights of the populace. I think
| Trump would, were he able, pretty dramatically extend
| this trend, but he won't have started it, and it remains
| to be seen how much farther he succeeds at going than
| other recent presidents.
| nailer wrote:
| > You are taking common associations and turning them
| into hard and fast rules when they aren't.
|
| No, "authoritarian regime" has a common meaning. Common
| meanings exist, it is silly to pretend they do not.
|
| This might help: https://www.google.com/search?q=examples
| +of+authoritarian+re...
|
| Here's Britannica:
|
| > The most notable authoritarian regimes of the 20th
| century were characterized by a charismatic leader, a
| mass party, and a powerful secret police force. Regimes
| that use state institutions to brainwash and completely
| control their populations are categorized as
| totalitarian. Totalitarian regimes aim to instill in
| their citizens an undying loyalty to the regime and its
| leader. Children are indoctrinated from a young age,
| learning about the heroics of their leaders and the
| superiority of the regime's guiding ideology. No dissent
| is tolerated, and all of the opposition is either exiled,
| killed, or imprisoned. Political trust is low, as
| citizens are encouraged to spy on each other and to serve
| as informants for the regime.
|
| https://www.britannica.com/topic/authoritarianism
| sanderjd wrote:
| Nothing you pasted here suggests that those attributes
| are required for the definition of "authoritarian
| regime", it is just a characterization of "the most
| notable authoritarian regimes" as it itself says in the
| text.
| nailer wrote:
| The most notable examples of 'authoritarian regimes'
| being dictatorships absolutely establishes that is what
| the term commonly means.
|
| I think probably 90% of the people in this thread arguing
| otherwise speak English natively and are thus already
| aware of this, they just dislike being contradicted.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Nobody in this thread has said "this is a single-party
| regime akin to Iraq or North Korea".
| nailer wrote:
| No, they used the term 'authoritarian regime' which
| commonly means this. See the references I have posted
| elsewhere in this thread.
| sanderjd wrote:
| This is simply incorrect.
| MiiMe19 wrote:
| >authoritarian is when the government does thing I don't like
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| Look as long as they keep being this salty about
| authoritarianism when a guy with a different letter next to
| his name shows up and does it, I'm fine with it.
|
| My concern is that many won't.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Funny how all the replies to me are pure defensiveness
| about the word "authoritarian", rather than the point of my
| post (the chilling effects on speech).
| enragedcacti wrote:
| The need for reporting on this stems from the massive blatant
| lies coming from the admin backed up by the media parroting the
| narrative. From NASA on Aug 7, 2024:
|
| > Wilmore and Williams will continue their work formally as
| part of the Expedition 71/72 crew through February 2025. They
| will fly home aboard a Dragon spacecraft with two other crew
| members assigned to the agency's SpaceX Crew-9 mission.
| Starliner is expected to depart from the space station and make
| a safe, controlled autonomous re-entry and landing in early
| September.
|
| The only change in plan was that Crew 10 was pushed back by a
| month because of delays at SpaceX and a swap to an existing
| dragon rather than the new one as planned.
|
| > There's actually a video of Butch, from the station, saying
| Musk's description was "entirely factual"
|
| His entire career hinges on keeping musk and trump happy
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-decides-to-bring-star...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-10
| _cs2017_ wrote:
| The fault in the Starliner was known in June 2024
| (https://www.space.com/nasa-boeing-starliner-crew-flight-
| test...). By August 2024, NASA said that the crew would stay
| until Feb 2025. That was not the original plan like you
| claim. See also:
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/nasa-astronauts-
| hea....
| enragedcacti wrote:
| It's mind-numbingly obvious from context that the plan I
| was referring to was the rescue plan announced in August,
| not the starliner mission as a whole.
| peeters wrote:
| When you have a President that fires, deports, sues, and calls
| for the impeachment of anyone who challenges him, why on Earth
| (pun intended) would you take the word of someone whose life is
| in his hands at face value?
|
| Get on the ground, then tell the truth. The moment Trump
| politicized those astronauts they became political hostages.
| russdill wrote:
| NASA answered a number of direct questions on this during the
| crew-10 pressers. So they were asked directly. The problem is
| the Musk claim is that he took the offer directly to the White
| House, bypassing NASA. From the crew-10 pressers, NASA was
| completely unaware.
|
| I'd read the Butch quote very carefully:
|
| I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely
| factual. We have no information on that, though, whatsoever;
| what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to,
| how that process went. That's information that we simply don't
| have. So I believe him. I don't know all those details, and I
| don't think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe
| that you would be hoping for.
|
| He makes it absolutely clear that he can't answer the question
| because he doesn't have any of the information. But he believes
| Musk and that what Musk says is "Absolutely factual".
| piokoch wrote:
| There are certain historical inadequacies in the article.
|
| "That is, the Apollo Program brought the country together in the
| turbulent 1960s and helped make everyone feel good about the
| country"
|
| This certainly was not 100% true, as some communities protested
| against Apollo program [1], even though, overall, the progress it
| has caused helped eventually those communities as well.
|
| Nevertheless there were kind of bipartisan agreement to push this
| program which, in current situation of the divide in the society,
| would be hard to achieve, given some program pitfalls, like the
| tragic catastrophe of Apollo 1, which killed Virgil Grissom,
| Edward Higgins White and Roger Chaffee (worth to not forget those
| people, who sacrificed their lives for humanity progress).
| Kennedy (and his wife) personality helped here a lot too, with
| some murky person, like Nixon, or someone featureless like
| Johnson it would've been more difficult.
|
| Also the claim that 1960s were turbulent is not really correct.
| In fact, 1970s were really turbulent with the rise of domestic
| terrorism [2][3].
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/14/apollo-11-ci...
|
| [2]
| https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OPSR_TP...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States
| cco wrote:
| The late 60s definitely qualify as turbulent. What is your
| claim in the negative?
| creaghpatr wrote:
| I think OP meant relative to the 70s.
| culi wrote:
| Even today this topic is often brought up in rap lyrics.
| Quest's last album had a song called "The Space Program" which
| featured the hook: "There ain't a space program
| for niggas Yeah, you stuck here, nigga"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Program_(song)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Nevertheless there were kind of bipartisan agreement to push
| this program which, in current situation of the divide in the
| society, would be hard to achieve,
|
| Note that the bipartisanship of the post-WW2, pre-2000s period
| was almost entirely a product of the long series of overlapping
| political realignments going on, which left the main political
| divides in the country poorly aligned with the split between
| the major parties--there was intense political polarization,
| and at many times intense political violence, but it wasn't
| partisan because the splits cut across rather than between the
| major parties.
|
| > Also the claim that 1960s were turbulent is not really
| correct. In fact, 1970s were really turbulent with the rise of
| domestic terrorism
|
| Thr 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were all turbulent, and domestic
| terrorism (including _state_ and state-tolerated terrorism,
| particularly around racial issues) was quite prominent in the
| 1950s; "domestic terrorism" was not unique to the 1970s, though
| _calling_ domestic political violence "terrorism" may have
| increased then.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Disappointed to see how politicized this issue has gotten,
| especially on HN.
| anonfordays wrote:
| Elon Derangement Syndrome is wild.
| russdill wrote:
| I don't know how someone aware of the facts and timeline of the
| situation can read this:
|
| https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1141790813395...
|
| And say oh, yes, it's the people with TDS/EDS trying to set the
| record straight that have the problem.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| The problem comes when the few things they do that are good
| are perceived as bad bc the people doing the good are
| perceived to be bad.
| russdill wrote:
| Certainly, credit should be given here to SpaceX for making
| such a successful and versatile crew capable vehicle with
| less budget and time than Boeing. Especially given the
| things that were being said about the two parties around
| the time the contracts were being handed out.
|
| If contract had instead been given to only Boeing, there
| would be a decent chance Butch and Suni would have needed
| to come home on a Soyuz.
|
| To people who have watched this saga from the grounding of
| shuttle until today, the number of administrations and
| administrators this has passed though, it's just totally
| bizarre that instead of just a PR boost for the reliability
| of SpaceX and Crew Dragon (and the failures of Boeing) this
| has been made into a political issue.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| It's important to remember that before Jan 20, 2025, the
| astronauts had a way home and had not been stranded by anyone.
| This is known and is a fact.
|
| Then, sometime after that date, Musk stranded them. Considering
| his working relationship with Trump, one can assume that Trump
| decided that this was acceptable. So, President Trump and Musk
| stranded them. We know this is true because President Trump and
| Musk said they were stranded. If they said they were stranded, it
| meant that the plan in place had been pulled, and the only people
| that could do that were Trump and Musk.
|
| Sometime after that, they elected to rescue them again.
|
| If you take President Trump and Musk's word, they abandoned the
| astronauts at some point. The only way this is not true is if
| they were lying to the American people.
| ergocoder wrote:
| Just curious. Why didn't they come back earlier?
|
| Turning 8 days into 9 months seems bad. Really really bad.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| That's entirely immaterial to my comment. You can read the
| entire story in other locations. However, none of that
| changes the fact that my comment is accurate.
| ergocoder wrote:
| I read it, and it sounded more like an excuse. Astronauts
| could have come down anytime but for this weird reason they
| decided to hang out up there in an unplanned 8 month trip.
|
| > my comment is accurate
|
| Not really. You mentioned Musk stranded them after Jan 20.
|
| They came down less than 2 months after that date. That
| seems fast for a space trip. Faster than the other 6
| months...
| smm11 wrote:
| Republican Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in the 1980 presidential
| election. Although Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher
| had completed negotiations under Algerian auspices to free the
| American hostages in Tehran, President Carter and Secretary of
| State Edmund S. Muskie, suffered to their last day in office. On
| January 20, 1981, the hostages were finally freed--but only after
| Ronald Reagan had been sworn in as president.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| What is the point of posting this?
|
| Are you suggesting Trump, like Reagan, may have interfered to
| delay the release of citizens held up in unusual circumstances
| --for personal political gain?
| hysan wrote:
| Honest question - when I compare the comments here to other
| threads that have been presumably flagged for political reasons,
| the discussions don't look all that dissimilar. There's no
| technical discussion and everything devolves into political
| chatter. Why are other posts flagged but this one not?
| nailer wrote:
| Either not enough flags (it's an article about space, not
| politics), or dang manually removes flags (he commented
| recently that he does this). I think the former, the latter
| usually happens when th article itself is political.
| magicmicah85 wrote:
| Those cheers after the drogue chutes deploy have got to be the
| best feeling of relief an engineer has ever felt. You can plan,
| test and validate each others work for years but when it's
| finally lives on the line, all you've got left while waiting is a
| wish, hope or prayer everything goes right. Congrats to the
| SpaceX team and NASA for another successful splashdown.
| sepositus wrote:
| Incredible story with a great ending. This used to be an apex HN
| discussion. It's so sad to see it devolve into a partisan flame
| war.
| nrb wrote:
| Unsurprising that it did after the story itself devolved into a
| partisan flame war though, emotions are running high when the
| same sort of misinformation and lies are finding their way into
| previously sacrosanct topics like space exploration.
| justapassenger wrote:
| > previously sacrosanct topics like space exploration.
|
| Space exploration was full of misinformation (or corporate
| BS, if you want to call it that way) for decades.
| aorloff wrote:
| The notion of "apex HN discussion" assumes a kind of fealty to
| performative feuilletonism that I'm just not yet willing to
| submit to.
| euroderf wrote:
| "Fealty to Performative Feuilletonism" is a great name for an
| art-punk group.
| sepositus wrote:
| Well, it's certainly subjective, and that's how I meant it.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| That's because the main story is one of politics.
|
| Take out politics and the story is nothing special. These guys
| are astronauts, their mission just took longer than expected
| because people considered it was safer that way. A movie about
| it would as boring as a movie about people working in space can
| be.
|
| But political figures and the media took the story as an
| opportunity to do what they do best in creating "engagement",
| i.e. flame wars.
| ck2 wrote:
| Are there public domain NASA photos/video?
|
| Or is it all now copyright and privatized?
|
| Public funding production should mean public domain technology
| and product.
|
| Not just space stuff, publicly funded medicine too.
| mr_toad wrote:
| NASA has a whole streaming service. Not sure of the legal
| status but I thought everything made by the US government was
| public domain?
|
| https://plus.nasa.gov/
| t1234s wrote:
| How was SpaceX able to custom fit them for new space suits while
| up in orbit?
| russdill wrote:
| Because NASA had planned on the contingency of them joining the
| next expedition and returning with Crew-9. The astronauts
| trained for this possibility and NASA prepared for it. Even
| going as far as to include EVA suit components with the
| resupply before they arrived.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I'm really sorry. But "Stranded" is what you call astronauts who
| were supposed to come home after 8 days in space, but ended up
| spending 286 days in space, because their planned return vehicle
| was found to have a flaw, and the backup vehicle was too
| expensive or also wasn't ready (or whatever reason it took so
| long to get a Dragon capsule up there). I'm tired of arguing
| semantics with children.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| So it didn't bo(e)ing into the ground yet most people here shit
| on Elon.
|
| I take that guy over those that killed 500 people by trying to
| save money on a sensor.
| sophacles wrote:
| It turns out, no matter how hard you squint, no matter how many
| drugs you take, or how many times you smash yourself in the
| head with a hammer, the fact remains: Elon is a human person.
|
| As such, he has many skills and many faults. This is something
| true of all humans.
|
| It seems that two of Elon's skills are: hire rocket scientists
| and not insert him self too much in the process of rocket
| science to cause catastrophe.
|
| Elon also has faults, and those are fair game to shit on.
|
| An egotistical blowhard that lies about being good at video
| games like a third grader desperate for friends on the the
| playground can also be good at hiring rocket scientists. They
| are orthogonal facts and can both exist at the same time.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| >not insert him self too much in the process of rocket
| science to cause catastrophe
|
| The fact that many believe all these companies thrive
| _despite_ the leadership is fascinating. I 've heard this
| same take over and over.
|
| One can't keep hiring the right people and make the right
| decisions without understanding how things work. Bezos is an
| extremely skilled manager yet his space company, which has
| actually been around longer than SpaceX as well, amounted to
| nothing like it. We could write it off to pure luck maybe, if
| Musk weren't a serial entrepreneur.
|
| There must be some sort of psychological phenomenon
| explaining this irrational way of viewing his achievements. I
| feel like that often when people talk about Musk they aren't
| even talking about him but some sort of fictional character
| that seems to exist purely in the imagination of certain
| people. And it's never those who actually worked with him.
| dwoldrich wrote:
| Who here wants a ticker tape parade to cheer on our brave
| astronauts!?!
|
| When the parade ends at the stadium, we'll be treated to Musk and
| Trump on the jumbotron thanking them and wild 'U-S-A' chants as
| the astronauts circle the track! Confetti and flags!!
|
| Who here still wants a ticker tape parade to cheer on our brave,
| heroic astronauts?!?
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