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A Shadowy Op-Ed Campaign Is Now Smearing SpaceX In Space Cities (arstechnica.com)
Last month when Boeing and SpaceX announced the first astronauts who will fly on their commercial crew spacecraft, several newspapers across the U.S. began publishing an op-ed that criticized the process by which Boeing competitor SpaceX fuels its Falcon 9 rocket. "The first op-ed appeared in a Memphis newspaper a week before the commercial crew announcement," reports Ars Technica. "In recent weeks, copies of the op-ed have also appeared in the Houston Chronicle, various Alabama newspapers, Albuquerque Journal, Florida Today, and The Washington Times." Ars Technica reports: All of these op-eds were bylined by "retired spacecraft operator" Richard Hagar, who worked for NASA during the Apollo program and now lives in Tennessee. (Based upon his limited social media postings, Hagar appears to be more interested in conservative politics than in space these days). Each op-ed cites Hagar's work on NASA's recovery from the Apollo 1 fire and the hard lessons NASA learned that day about human spaceflight. The pieces then pivot to arguing that SpaceX's load-and-go fueling process -- in which the crew will board the Dragon spacecraft on top of the Falcon 9 rocket before it is fueled -- ignores the lessons that Hagar's generation learned during Apollo.
"It's concerning to learn that some of the newer private space ventures launching today don't appreciate the same safety standards we learned to emphasize on Apollo," the op-ed states. "I suppose for Mr. Musk, inexperience is replacing the abundant safety protocols drilled into us after witnessing the Apollo 1 disaster. Astronaut safety is NASA's number one priority on any space mission. There is no reason it should not be for private space travel, but commercial space companies like SpaceX play by different rules."
There are some factual inaccuracies here. For one thing, SpaceX does play by the same rules as Boeing for commercial crew -- astronaut safety rules that NASA itself wrote. Moreover, NASA has already provisionally cleared load-and-go for Falcon 9 launches that will send the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. To try to understand his viewpoint, Ars attempted to reach Hagar by phone and email in September. In the course of this process, we learned that he did not actually submit many of these op-eds. In fact, based upon our research, at least four of the six op-eds that we located were submitted by two people with gmail.com addresses. Their names were Josh Brevik and Casey Murray. Further research revealed that two people with these names worked as "associates" at a Washington, DC-based public relations firm named Law Media Group or LMG. LMG's website says they are a 15-year-old firm that "develops and executes public-, Hill-, and agency-facing issue advocacy campaigns that shift the narrative in a changing world." The SourceWatch website more bluntly "calls LMG a 'secretive Washington DC public affairs firm' with a history of placing op-eds, and it seeks to mask the op-eds' financial sponsors," reports Ars.
"It's concerning to learn that some of the newer private space ventures launching today don't appreciate the same safety standards we learned to emphasize on Apollo," the op-ed states. "I suppose for Mr. Musk, inexperience is replacing the abundant safety protocols drilled into us after witnessing the Apollo 1 disaster. Astronaut safety is NASA's number one priority on any space mission. There is no reason it should not be for private space travel, but commercial space companies like SpaceX play by different rules."
There are some factual inaccuracies here. For one thing, SpaceX does play by the same rules as Boeing for commercial crew -- astronaut safety rules that NASA itself wrote. Moreover, NASA has already provisionally cleared load-and-go for Falcon 9 launches that will send the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. To try to understand his viewpoint, Ars attempted to reach Hagar by phone and email in September. In the course of this process, we learned that he did not actually submit many of these op-eds. In fact, based upon our research, at least four of the six op-eds that we located were submitted by two people with gmail.com addresses. Their names were Josh Brevik and Casey Murray. Further research revealed that two people with these names worked as "associates" at a Washington, DC-based public relations firm named Law Media Group or LMG. LMG's website says they are a 15-year-old firm that "develops and executes public-, Hill-, and agency-facing issue advocacy campaigns that shift the narrative in a changing world." The SourceWatch website more bluntly "calls LMG a 'secretive Washington DC public affairs firm' with a history of placing op-eds, and it seeks to mask the op-eds' financial sponsors," reports Ars.
Whats the conspiracy theory here? These Political thinktanks openly admit what they do. Hell, its their marketing pitch.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
if we privatize space travel that all goes away. Personally I don't want it to. Stuff like NASA is the closest thing to socialism we can get in the US. I don't like the idea of space travel becoming a rich man's club. I want a public option. But then again I also want public transit for my streets (that doesn't run one bus every 90 minutes) and I can't get that either.
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WTF, have you whack jobs never heard of syndication of content? Almost every story will appear in many different sites across the country and the world, it isn't a fucking conspiracy it is how content is produced and sold nowadays, a single site cannot afford to make all their own news content so it is licensed from others and what they produce is resold.
Read the article. The guy didn't even write the op-eds.
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It is just poor naive Rei who is trying to defend his hero. He doesn't understand how the world works and thinks everyone is attacking Musk.
The method they use to fuel their rocket *is* stupid, or at least willfully ignorant, as are several aspects of their launch sequence - particularly the static test with the payload stacked. The one that resulted in the payload being destroyed, completely unnecessarily.
Who the fuck is Rei, and how does Musk's latest dumb antic on dumb social media have any bearing on whether or not there's an organized disinformation campaign against SpaceX?
SpaceX charges about 1/3 what everyone else does for a commercial satellite mission and is a bargain for government missions too, despite their increased paperwork. Previous to SpaceX, the United States had a horrible situation where there was a space monopoly made of Boeing and Lockheed, previous competitors who got tangled in an industrial espionage situation and merged their space business rather than have the lawsuit of the century. The US Government and citizens lost, because they ended up having an expensive monopoly and on top of it they had to pay 1 Billion per year to the monopoly to assure they'd stay in business.
So far, SpaceX looks like they have the most viable path to space. There are a lot of "old space" businesses and government agencies that can't compete, so they FUD.
In theory, a rocket that cost 3 times as much (or more than that, in the case of the Shuttle) could afford to be safer for manned missions. In practice, it hasn't been.
Bruce Perens.
Let me guess, this guy was a blue collar worker who thinks he is an engineer, and now lives in the south and thinks he actually knows better.
This is the exact kind of people you would expect to support Trump - opinionated, wrong, and with years of mediocre experience doing stupid shit like driving a truck or working construction.
I don't have a problem with these idiots. I have a problem with people who would listen to them, and whatever fake news organization staffed by similar mediocre types who would publish their stories under the banner of experienced "spacecraft operator".
Quite literally a white noise generator, trying to be relevant, years after they've stopped being relevant.
No, some PR firms writing and publishing articles under the name of someone who might actually know something.
RTFS: "Ars attempted to reach Hagar by phone and email in September. In the course of this process, we learned that he did not actually submit many of these op-eds"
All of this, despite the fact NASA are signing off on the procedures of both Boeing and SpaceX, which are both going to use "load-and-go".
publish similarly-leaning op-eds without verifying the submitter and without obtaining permission from the actual author of the piece. surprise, surprise.. if they treat the easy (to confirm and verify) content pieces like this, how shitty is their actual 'news' sourced and backed (or not)?
Theyâ(TM)ve a long history of dubious and illegal practices.
What's so farfetched about SpaceX's competitors hiring a firm to conduct a PR campaign? There are firms that offer such services because there's a market for it. Talk up your client's company or spread FUD about their competition. You see it all the time in big ticket defense contracting.
The only thing that's a bit melodramatic is calling it "shadowy" or regarding it as somehow especially dirty pool.
Voters in places with a lot of space jobs are important political constituencies for space contractors,
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Say what you will about Musk, but at least he’s never boring.
I had no idea we had taken it this far.
Whats the conspiracy theory here? These Political thinktanks openly admit what they do. Hell, its their marketing pitch.
If that was true, why were they lying about who wrote it, and if it was a paid position piece or an op-ed by a retired subject expert?
I don't see how you can square, "they lied about who wrote it in order to get it published in disguise by people who otherwise wouldn't publish a press release as an op-ed" with "These Political think-tanks openly admit what they do."
I usually browse without seeing this kind of Anonymous trash that gets posted. Th am you for reminding me to turn the filter on again.
REI is an outdoor equipment store for yuppies. Polyester, mostly.
Sure Ars reporting could be better but your speculation and suggested motives are nonsense. And you are commenting as AC because why? Donâ(TM)t reply, I know why.
And because you despise Musk for some reason, it means condoning that sort of behavior? Because thatâ(TM)s âhow the world worksâ(TM)? You should run for government with that inspired ethical stance.
I want to see Musk run as President Trump's VP in 2020. Establishment flaks will have a conniption fit and probably shit themselves.
Speaking as a 66-year-oldfart, going out in a sheet of flames in the one of the worlds fastest aircraft looks a lot better than shitting myself in a nursing home. Go ahead, let people take the risk if they want.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Speaking as a 66-year-oldfart, going out in a sheet of flames in the one of the worlds fastest aircraft looks a lot better than shitting myself in a nursing home. Go ahead, let people take the risk if they want.
Hell it's either that or live long enough to watch the idiot snowflake generation destroy the country and western civilization, I'd take my chances going into space in a heartbeat.
They're russian hackers, soon to be bringing novichik to your town.
Space Ex is only cheap because they lose money on every flight and cut corners with safety.
That's a blatant lie.
Lockheed Martin has been wasting tax money with corner cutting and failures for decades:
Just one example, and far from an isolated incident:
Investigation showed that Titan K-17, which was several years old and the last Titan IV-A to be launched, had dozens of damaged or chafed wires and should never have been launched in that operating condition, however the Air Force put extreme pressure on launch crews to meet program deadlines. The ultimate cause of the failure was an electrical short that caused a momentary power dropout to the guidance computer at T+39 seconds. After power was restored, the computer sent a spurious pitch down and yaw to the right command. At T+40 seconds, the Titan was travelling at near supersonic speed and could not handle this action without suffering a structural failure. In any case, the Titan's fuselage was filled with numerous sharp metal protrusions that made it nearly impossible to install, adjust, or remove wiring without it getting damaged. Quality control at Lockheed's Denver plant, where Titan vehicles were assembled, was described as "awful".
Here, watch for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I don't see how you can square, "they lied about who wrote it in order to get it published in disguise by people who otherwise wouldn't publish a press release as an op-ed" with "These Political think-tanks openly admit what they do."
As long as you keep the two ends of the business well separated, there's no problem. Keeping this separation is their expertise.
And the total rocket configuration used to launch it isn't the one that costs 1/3 of all the other players.
You get what you pay for, even in space.
Liar.
The rocket that launched the 'dummy payload' mass simulator car with Starman is the most powerful rocket currently flying. It wasn't the same configuration as a Falcon 9, which is 1/3 the cost of anything comparable, because it was 3 modified Falcon 9 rockets bolted together to provide more lift than any other rocket available today. If ULA offered a comparable rocket, it probably would have been 10 times more expensive - because fraud and waste scale exponentially.
Elon Musk's SpaceX has dropped launch costs significantly, which lowers the cost of space based services, like satellite TV, GPS, and global communications. The fact that you do not see a benefit from SpaceX's success simply means that you do not work in technology. Or, you could simply be an idiot. Or a paid troll for a US defense contractor.
I own and drive Tesla. No oil. No oil filter. No air filter. No clutch. No timing belt. No starter. No fuel injectors. No fuel pump. No water pump. No emissions - and the emissions used to product the electricity for this car, even if coming from a coal power plant, are much, much less than a regular gasoline car.
Not only am I saving the planet, I'm also saving myself significant money and ass pain in the process.
Now, here's the part where I enjoy being an asshole: At every intersection, I smoke you. On the interstate, I smoke you. On a high-altitude mountain pass, I smoke you, because my car doesn't need fucking oxygen.
Because, as an early adopter who forked out serious cash for a Tesla (cash up front, I never finance), I've subsidized the market for electric vehicles. Soon electric cars will be cheaper than gasoline cars - both to buy and to operate. You are welcome.
Oh, and fuck you, you disingenuous petty piece of troll shit.
It was never about Tesla. The SEC is going after his ass because of SpaceX being a threat to the political class that's in bed with all those government contractors (his competitors).
There is a constituency of businesses disrupted by Musk who don't mind using social engineering to attack all things Musk and pollute the mindspace with their propaganda, or buying Congressmen to oppose his efforts. As we learned from the Manafort drama, such work has highly paid experts eager to receive that deposit into their offshore accounts.
But this is Musk's game too. He has skills in this regard or such FUD would have killed his prospects already years ago. He's taking on Boeing, Ford, GM, Fossil fuels (Saudi, BP, Exxon), nuclear power, etc. And all the nations with launch business (Russia, China, India, etc). His enemies list is pretty much the Fortune 500 and every country on Earth. If he goes missing the police are going to have a harder time finding non-suspects than suspects.
And he's fine with that. It's all going to plan. He knew when he set out to save his species from extinction that his works were not going to be popular, or they would not be necessary. We are more 100x more predisposed to extinction than the dinosaurs were, as they made it 100 million years and we seem unlikely to crack the million years mark.
What's remarkable to me is how much he seems to be enjoying making fools of them all. Stoking their ire and poking the bear as if building a self sustaining colony on another planet was insufficiently challenging and he wanted to inspire the opposition to step up their game.
I don't know why he has a problem with the short sellers. A short sale is a gamble that his stock will go down, which cannot possibly exist unless there is a counter party willing to take the other side of that bet and put their money on his stock going up. Many people who believe he cannot possibly fail buy stock in his companies and then rent out their shares to his naysayers and use the money they earn in that way to buy more shares. The long and short interest in Musk stocks is a self-reinforcing commitment to volatility against a predictable trend. Long and short sellers are gambling on whether they can predict the direction of motion and attracted because he is generating a lot of motion (volatility). They are drawn like moths to his flame for no other reason than that he is succeeding in being disruptive and controversial - which are primary goals of his. It's probably an ego thing he hasn't considered: for every stupid person willing to offer their money to bet against him there is a smart person willing to take that bet, and so there is balance in the bets that moves money from the stupid to the smart and he is the conveyor belt.
Hubris is a sin and he's guilty it. I can hope there is no human living who can make him do penance for this sin because that would be the end of Mankind. If he fails to deliver an interplanetary human species there will be no other, more capable human to repeat the attempt. And that means that eventually the last of my offsprings' heirs will die without issue, my genome will become dust as yours will, all the history struggles art and works of Men throughout all time will come to nought as the passage of time erases all evidence that we ever did exist.
/My first /. post in 4 years. Things have changed around here, so be gentle.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
He's not lying! He is just trying to "shift the narrative in a changing world"
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You're so focused on the syndication aspect that you missed the fact that the reference in the by-line claims not to have written any of the content. You're complaining about the wrong conspiracy.
RTFS: "Ars attempted to reach Hagar by phone and email in September. In the course of this process, we learned that he did not actually submit many of these op-eds"
I can hope that Ars follows this up with the news organizations that published the editorials under his byline. As a fellow news organization, they may actually be able to draw attention to this, and the organizations that were suckered might delve into the financial backers who are pushing this agenda.
Dollars to donuts it's the companies involved in ULA, or possibly political organizations (or even politicians) who are funded by ULA companies.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
> SpaceX does it so much cheaper than the "socialist" option, that they are literally pissing the entire launch industry around the world off.
Yeah and we know one group *around the world* who has felt threatened by competing with the US in space travel, and their strategy for competing has been to sow discord and disharmony in the US with secret media campaigns. The more we're busy arguing with each other, the less we are able to beat them, they figure.
NASA Brings billions of federal dollars in. if we privatize space travel that all goes away.
Your argument is that federal pork on an interstellar bus service is somehow a good thing? What do you think NASA actually does? They aren't an interstellar bus service and they should not be. Their work with stuff like the Apollo program and Space Shuttle and ISS are high profile but it's only a fraction of what they do. Most of what NASA does is research and engineering. Contracting private companies to handle the actual transit duties actually frees NASA to do their primary mission since a lot of that are already solved problems. NASA is good at figuring out tough problems at the boundaries of human knowledge. They aren't good at making those solutions economical - that's what private industry does well. NASA figured out how to get rocket into orbit (reasonably) safely and now they transfer that to private companies to figure out how to do it less expensively and at scale.
Stuff like NASA is the closest thing to socialism we can get in the US.
NASA is a research agency. If you think they are some sort of quasi-socialist entity in the US government you don't really understand what socialism actually is.
I don't like the idea of space travel becoming a rich man's club.
How exactly do you think capitalism works? NASA isn't ever going to be an organization that can make space travel affordable. They literally cannot do that job well and they've already tried (see the Space Shuttle fiasco) and failed. NASA's mission is to push the boundaries of human knowledge as it relates to aviation and space exploration. Their job is decidedly NOT to be an interstellar bus service. Yes some people are going to make money launching rockets and this isn't a bad thing. The ONLY way cost to orbit is going to drop is for private enterprise to get involved. If some money is made along the way by people who are solving real problems then so much the better.
But then again I also want public transit for my streets (that doesn't run one bus every 90 minutes) and I can't get that either.
WTF does that have to do with NASA?
You think the SLS is using solid fuel because it's the best option?
I think the SLS is using solid fuel boosters because they've already done a lot of the work courtesy of the Space Shuttle program and it's easier to adapt existing tech than to develop brand new tech. Plus the infrastructure to build and service the things is already in place with existing suppliers. It's why the Soyuz system is still in place after all these decades even though it's possible to develop something that outperforms it. Sure it also functions as pork to keep politicians happy but that is an argument against the program not against the technology itself. There is no single right answer to the technical question of what is the "best" option. There are pros and cons to every possible choice. It may very well be that the SRBs were the best option given the constraints NASA had to work with for the program goals. Change the goals and then maybe the choices need to change too. Let's say NASA goes with a blank canvas liquid fuel design instead. Now they have a MUCH bigger and likely more expensive engineering task to develop and prove a new system which they have to do under the exact same budget. It's not like Congress is anxious to increase their budget either so what choice would you make?
Engineering and program management aren't always about finding the ideal technical solution. Economics and sometimes politics play a role too. Sometimes you are better off dusting off a proven technology because it costs less or because it's less risky or because it's less costly. It's about making sure perfect isn't the enemy of good. There are more factors to consider than merely what is the current state of the art technology and using only that.
I have a good friend who works range optics at Vandenberg and knows a lot of people from the various launch teams. He says the ULA people hate SpaceX.
Sure, they had a comfy cozy little business and suddenly they've been exposed for the incompetent leaches they really are. I bet they don't like SpaceX but that's just sour grapes and I really don't give a shit. They had decades to do better and they sat on their asses. Now SpaceX is handing them that fat complacent ass and they don't like it? Cry me a river.
SpaceX has never been about being a rich mans game. He is using sort of the same model he did with Tesla where you build the expensive one and use the money generated from the sales for that to fund the next round, and repeat, getting cheaper and scaling each time.
Yep. Literally every business Elon has done since PayPal has been basically about bringing economies of scale to a business or business segment that did not have them before and driving costs down. It's not easy to do but when it succeeds the rewards are immense. He's moved several industries more in the last 10 years than they have moved in the last 50. It's why I wish the guy well... not because I care about Elon but because if he forced GM to make a better EV or ULA to make a cheaper launch vehicle or gets solar panels on every roof then that benefits us all. We need people who are change agents like that driving inefficiency out of industries that have gotten complacent.
What's so farfetched about SpaceX's competitors hiring a firm to conduct a PR campaign?
Absolutely nothing. Engaging in possibly criminal activity involving identity theft, however...
"Rei" is a Slashdot account run by a bunch of paid Musk shills
I'm always amused when people make the idiotic argument that Slashdot matters enough to draw "paid shills". It certainly has enough crazies saying stupid things (exhibit A above) but it's pretty safe to say neither Elon Musk nor anyone he employs have time or money to give a shit about what some random idiot message board bloggers say on slashdot. Slashdot hasn't been relevant for YEARS and even at it's peak it didn't matter much. It's mostly a bunch of folks like me who hang around and argue for old times sake to amuse themselves. Honestly I'm not entirely sure why I continue to bother when I see stupidity like what I'm replying to here.
Yeah, so cut the crap about Musk trying to save the world. He is just another guy grabbing money.
Making money and "saving the world" are not mutually exclusive. And frankly to do much that really matters you need money to do it. There are legitimate criticisms you can make about Musk but I don't think this one is among them. If all Elon cared about was money he sure as hell wouldn't have started SpaceX or Tesla. The guy has taken HUGE risks which he didn't have to with those companies. He could have just checked out after the PayPal buyout if money was all that mattered to him.
I've never seen so many people taken in by such a cult leader.
As opposed to you who is too cool for school and just sits around trolling nonsense?
It is because I think the is a scam artist who takes public money to enrich himself which convincing all of his followers he is out to save the planet and take them to Mars.
This argument is just ridiculous and stupid. First off Tesla isn't taking any public money. The got a loan a while back (far less than GM incidentally) which they repaid quickly. The tax incentives for purchasing their vehicles don't bring a dime directly to Tesla and frankly probably don't have more than a marginal effect on sales. People who buy $100,000 cars aren't doing it for the tax writeoff and in any case Tesla has burned through the tax rebates available to their customers and yet people are still lining up to buy them. As for SpaceX, yes he launches government satellites and works closely with NASA. So what? So does every other launch company because governments are who launch such devices and NASA is in charge of that sort of business. Furthermore SpaceX has SAVED public money on such launches by lowering cost to orbit. Would you prefer the tax payers pay ULA's jacked up rates instead? Or maybe you would prefer we pay the Russians instead of a US company? SpaceX also has a large launch manifest of non-government clients too which you conveniently ignore. Furthermore please find me a large company that doesn't take full advantage of tax laws and government contracts whenever feasible for them to do so. I think you are being rather selective in your focus on thinking Musk run companies are somehow unusual in that regard.
I also hate cults.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think he is a disgusting human being.
Maybe he is and maybe he isn't but you seem a little fixated. Did Musk pee in your breakfast cereal or something? Let it go dude. Nobody cares if you like him or don't but at least he's doing something creating value in the world. What have you don't that makes you such a moral paragon that we should give a shit about your opinion of Musk?
That's not what the article says. The articles says nothing on whether Hagar wrote the op-ed, it says he didn't submit all of them to the numerous newspapers that published it. Essentially he submitted it to one or two newspapers, and then this PR outfit appears to have pushed it out to other newspapers, with or without his consent.
Here's what the article says (my bolding):
He didn't submit many of the op eds - his authorship is not in question, just whether he submitted the op eds to the papers that published them. He didn't submit many of the op eds - the fact he submitted some is not in question either.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
It's not syndication, Ars Technica was able to track down who submitted it to various newspapers, and instead of finding the papers themselves or a syndication outfit, found instead both the original author (for one or two), and a lobbying company.
It's interesting, but this is the way things work these days. As someone who's provided so much ammunition to anti-train groups who lobby using his bullshit arguments behind the scenes, it's nice to see Musk on the other end for once.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Is there any less economical way to get people into space than SLS?
Yes. I refer you to the Space Shuttle, the Apollo program, and pretty much any other heavy launch vehicle NASA has developed. The cost per Apollo launch was (inflation adjusted) about $1.2 billion per launch. The SLS is projected to cost considerably less than that though like most programs still in development the real numbers are still a bit fuzzy. It's also unlikely that the SLS would cost more than the Space Shuttle launches since it uses a lot of the same tech but is a notably less complex design. (presuming of course a similar number of launches to amortize the development costs over)
It's not clear to me that we need the SLS program in light of the apparent success of Falcon Heavy and some of the upcoming heavy launch systems but let's not pretend it is worse than other NASA launch programs. I think the justification for it is really as something of a fall back option in case SpaceX and the rest go tits up unexpectedly. That seems increasingly unlikely to happen but until the private sector options number more than SpaceX and ULA it's probably a good idea to have a back up plan just in case so we don't have to keep bumming rides off the Russians.
Instead, they need to pre-fuel the rocket and have it boiling off cryogenics while they have far more people working around it that don't have the convenience of a launch escape system?
That sounds far more dangerous to me.
Load up the payload, whether it be breathing or not, clear the pad, pump in the fuel, launch. If anything happens while pumping fuel, the only people around have a solid rocket motor to lift them away from the danger and deposit them out of harm's way.
Why is this a difficult concept?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
McDonnell Douglas ruined Boeing.
You're not kidding. This article was from 18 years ago, and is still true today:
http://archive.fortune.com/mag...
"McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money."
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
...Musk is in trouble with the SEC because he lied, period. Markets have rules, and one of the rules here is "Don't misrepresent your intentions." With that said, your hagiographic defense of Musk is admirable, because we need forward thinkers and doers like him if we are going to think ourselves out of the crapsack world we are heading towards. But we don't want to cure the disease by killing the patient. Musk has some really good ideas, but he also has some really dated (read: flawed) ideas about the role of markets and of labor. fwiw, he seems to be adapting strategies that were successful for a class of entrepreneurs in the late 18th century that created the conditions that produced our current political-economic paradigm. Look up "robber baron" if you want some insight into Musk's style of disruption. We need to recognize and correct the errors in our current economic and political models, and it is going to take disruptors like Musk to keep those errors front and center -- to keep reminding everybody that the current paradigm is seriously flawed and in need of serious re-thinking.
I've been wondering about this kind of stuff since the week Taser was to go public, and suddenly stories started appearing how it was really very deadly.
While that could be a real concern, the timing suggested someone was trying to force the IPO valuation down.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
After all, we make them. You guys just party a lot.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Astronaut safety is NASA's number one priority on any space mission.
If safety is above mission success then we all are just hiding under our beds. There's a safety risk in everything, and launching people outside the atmosphere will carry all kinds of risks we would not have otherwise. If safety is above getting people into space then we never go to space. Safety cannot ever be the number one priority, safety needs to be second or third on the list if we are going to space. First priority is success. Second priority, in the case of private space programs, will be profit.
Maybe that's not even the right rank of priorities, profit is likely top on the list. Then comes mission success, as if you can't make money then you can't keep operating to try again. Safety is then third but then obviously dependent on priorities 1 and 2, as few will want profit if they don't survive to enjoy it and a company cannot be successful for long if people are killed or injured in the process.
Safety cannot be the first priority, because nothing is absolutely safe.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
because it's not a pork barrel project. NASA money is used to buy votes for other things from the Senators who have NASA projects in their states. Well, that and the government did all the real hard stuff in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
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Musk is all about Mars. EV is for Mars. Boring is for Mars. SpaceX is for Mars.
Maybe so but that matters little in the here and now and none of what he is doing actually requires going to Mars. What Musk's companies are doing has immense value even if we never send so much as another probe to Mars. Electric vehicles area good idea even if we never go to space again. SpaceX lowering cost to orbit has huge value far beyond anything relating to Mars. Better and more efficient tunnel making can make our current 2D infrastructure 3D which we desperately need in many densely populated places. Solar power development and battery tech don't need to leave earth to justify being a good idea. We need clean power and we need it as soon as we can get it.
The flamethrower was probably because he needed to clear weeds from his lawn or something. But the rest is Mars.
The flamethrower (which genuinely isn't a flamethrower - it's a roofing torch in fancy packaging) was genius marketing and fundraising inspired literally by the movie Spaceballs.