KEY POINTS
- Elon Musk said SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft “immediately” because of threats by Donald Trump to cancel government contracts with Musk’s businesses.
- Musk’s announcement on his social media site X escalated a war of words with Trump that began after the Tesla CEO criticized the major tax bill being pushed by the Republican president.
- A SpaceX Dragon capsule brought two NASA astronauts back to Earth in March after they were stranded for months at the International Space Station by a Boeing Starliner capsule.
Do it, bring back NASA into full force and increase their budget.
Dominance of this country is being fought over by a couple of petty 12 year old tyrants. It’s like a version of that Twilight Zone where the powerful kid is surrounded by people trying not to upset him, except the kids are drug-addled and senile.
The same spacex that hasn’t had a launch since trump took office?
The SpaceX that got 3 billion dollars to get us to Mars and didn’t get beyond blowing up a banana over the Indian ocean, that one yes
Why do I feel like the entire government is based off a 2yo building a house of cards with his bully from school.
Because you have a firm grasp of reality?
And this is why billionaires should not control vital resources
But they always do.
I’m okay if billionaires exist, but their political and economic power should be somehow kept in check
Money is political and economic power. You CANNOT have one without the other.
doesn’t need to be
go get money out of politics
remove citizens united and all that
Nope. No one person ever needs anything near that amount of money.
Agreed. No one should have that much wealth. Saying it is fine is like saying cancer is fine for a body.
I’m okay with billionaires if the government provides a UBI of ten million a year. A hundred years of UBI seems like a fair amount for someone to own if they worked really hard and inherited a nice house. Houses are one of the only things I think should be inherited.
WE’RE NOT GOING TO MARS, YOU FUCKING NAZI ASSCLOWN. IT’S A TERRIBLE IDEA.
NASA HAS LAUNCHED MANY ROCKETS FOR MANY DECADES. YOU BLOW SHIT UP BECAUSE YOU THINK THE RULES OF PHYSICS AND MECHANICS DONT APPLY TO YOU.
EVERYTHING WOULD BE BETTER IF YOU WERE DEPORTED TO A BLACK SITE.
FUCK YOU, ELMO
Nobody is going to Mars in our lifetimes
Eh, depending how old you are. I can believe somebody is going to Mars in ~50 years.
Going to Mars is a fucking great idea.
And frankly SpaceXs rapid testing isn’t a big deal. It’s lead to decent results.
Musks sucks, but SpaceX isn’t why.
Deliberately burning up a viable planet and blowing all your resources to go to a dead planet is fucking stupid on every level and every metric. Absolutely indefensible.
fred randall already went to mars
What about Fred Durst?
fred randall > fred durst
What results?
Falcon9 bring the cost of launching something to LEO down by an order of magnitude?
Soooooo… Kind of…
I didn’t check the cargo numbers but for Crewed missions we have some nice estimates from the OIG in 2024 based on the crew program development costs and the built-in 6 flight missions we got for the contracts:
-SpaceX Dragon ~ 55 million/seat
-Boeing Starliner ~ 90 million/seat
-Russia Soyuz ~ 86 million/seat
-Space Shuttle ~ 87 million/seat (adjusted for inflation)
Soyuz was ~ 20 million a seat in 2007, 2013 it was ~ 55 million a seat, and 2014-2018 it was 62 million a seat, now it’s that 86 number.
Funny thing is happening at SpaceX recently, namely NASA used up all 6 flights that were 55 million a seat, so they needed to extend for flights 7-9 and 10-14
In February 2022 NASA Extended their contract with SpaceX for flights 7-9 at around 258 million per flight (so ~64.5 million per seat) and again in June 2022 for flights 10-14 at 288 million per flight (so ~72 million per seat)
So SpaceX came out of the gate with their handfuls of investor cash and subsidized the original contracts, but they’re likely rapidly increasing prices now that they’ve burned through most of that runway.
I wasnt really thinking about crewed mission tbh, more the cost per tonne which Space X certainly brought down dramatically (though not quite by an order of magnitude).
Plus without SpaceX, our only ride to space would be the Soyuz
Ariane would like a word.
I’m not aware of any human rated spacecraft being launched with Ariane. I know there were some concepts for at least Ariane 5, and it would be cool for Europe to be independent on this.
Ariane has an astronaut ferry and reentry vehicle? That’s news to me. Also: they’re more than 2x as expensive per kg to orbit.
I think I’d laugh myself unconscious if Trump nationalized Space X.
Not likely, Trump is pro privatization.
nationalise, and then privatise?
Claim Musk is a dangerous foreign influence and force a sale like for Tiktok
I’ve been saying for years that it needs to be nationalized. And this is a really good time to do so; Elon is showing that him being in charge is a national security risk.
But Trump 100% doesn’t have the guts to do it.
That’s the CO part of the TACO
Trump would rather just give the ISS transport job back to his bff putin
He’ll just flog it to someone more compliant.
SNASA is that you?
Lil NASA X
Gaddammit that’s annoyingly good.
The IP trace shows it’s coming from the SMoon!!!
Yeah, I doubt he could manage that.
It is the end of manned space flight for the USA. Thanks MAGAts.
Blue Origin will have us doing it again. They truly are the tortoise of the race.
Yeah, let’s get the other billionaire idiot on the payroll so he can get Katy Perry to the ISS.
That would be some fireworks
Make 'em go, “Ah, ah, ah”
Blue Origin has used FAR less government money than SpaceX. That’s one of the reason they sell those trips. You have to pay for things somehow.
Right. They built their rockets on Amazon wage theft and stock profits. Totally different than stealing directly from tax payers.
EDIT: Wage theft.
I mean, SpaceX has a lot more government contacts, because you know, they have working orbital vehicles…
Edit: I deleted my other post because I was mostly wrong. I didn’t realize New Glen has actually launched once. Good on them for achieving orbit.
They had way more government funding to get to the point Blue Origin is at. I’m not just talking about right now. That would be silly.
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Hell, even "stra got their thing to orbit. I think. Then their stock crashed even harder.
Oops, yes they have gotten to orbit. All while using less seed money from the government. https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-launches-massive-new-glenn-rocket-into-orbit-on-1st-flight-video
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Now, now, those were the ways of Reddit. I’d like to think we conduct ourselves better than that on Lemmy.
I’m not denying that.
Have they even achieved orbit?
Yes, NG-1 was orbital
You were down voted, but you’re correct. I had to look that up. Pretty cool, on their first attempt too. https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-launches-massive-new-glenn-rocket-into-orbit-on-1st-flight-video
Not yet
Edit: Turns out I was wrong. Their craft that was supposed to make it to orbit made it on its first attempt. https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-launches-massive-new-glenn-rocket-into-orbit-on-1st-flight-video
That’s a load bearing “yet”
Oops, I was wrong. They made it on their first attempt at it. https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-launches-massive-new-glenn-rocket-into-orbit-on-1st-flight-video
Damn that made me laugh.
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Lol, they’re the stuffed tortoise of the race.
What if this is some 4d chess move to give more funding to NASA?
Didn’t they just cut a shitload from nasa like 2 days ago?
You mean… By Musk? Yikes… Does anyone have to answer that? Are you new to this reality?
Is he promising to leave the former US?
By launching it?
