Elon Musk is the subsidy king
I hate this country's people with a passion
Ah the old Atlas Shrugged fallacy of the single brilliant entrepreneur inventor. The idea that some inventor sits in a lab and comes up with some new idea totally detached from other invention. It's a complete myth and is as detached from reality as much as everything else Rand wrote about.
Innovation builds on innovation, and builds on the work of countless other people. In this example here, Musk is able to do what he does in space only because of the hundreds of billions spent by multiple governments on space exploration and other related technologies.
Not to mention Musk can only put things into space that generate ROI. None of it advances human knowledge or allows us to significantly expand our technological capabilities. The capitalist economies all pretty much abandoning government support for innovation and handing it off to the private sector is why I genuinely think we're moving backwards when it comes to tech and innovation.
💯 on the innovation stuff. I think the current stage of capitalism and VC funding has heightened this. Large corporations are often effectively outsourcing R&D to startups who exist solely to be acquired - not to actually become viable businesses in themselves. In turn it incentivises short term thinking for innovation, as startups have to move quickly to gain and keep funding, producing snake oil to keep the gravy train going. Of course there are exceptions to this, but it seems like a growing trend - larger companies externalising risk and costs from their bottom line, and getting a PR splash when they buy a “hot” startup.
I agree with @Apompliano completely: we need as many entrepreneurs as we can get. In fact, I would go so far as to say that we need absolutely all able people on the face of this planet to be innovators. To this end, I suggest we distribute resources among everyone equitably. It's the only way to ensure they get the opportunity they need to be entrepreneurial innovators.
Haha, yeah, this is a very good point. After all, no government has ever put people in space.
Lol all you have to do is Google "spacex subsidies" to see how dumb this tweet is
And here lies my problem with :freeze-peach: - being able to tweet absolute bullshit to tens of thousands of people and having it spread like wildfire
Did you know that Elon Musk is helping his fellow innovators and entrepreneurs get into space exploration by offering funds to help their start ups? Google "SpaceX subsidies" to learn more.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.rt.com/usa/264065-musk-tesla-government-subsidies/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwiY87L124PzAhUECM0KHW_2A7YQFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3UW2zMlJ4CxHSu5hIdIY0F&cf=1
The electric entrepreneur didn’t deny the company gets the incentives, however he went on CNBC’s Power Lunch show on Monday, blasting the report as “incredibly misleading and deceptive to the reader.”
OK, so you admit you get government funding, but you disagree with the article because it makes you look bad
Ugh I can hear his smug silicon valley ass saying that with a shiteating grin. Faux-concern over the ignorant masses being "misled" over his misunderstood genius. Fucking hate that people like him are setting the agenda for so much of our social production. Such a waste.
The people who think they are free thinkers are the one's who most believe in the ruling class propaganda
Repeat after me: I'm a free thinker™
Whenever someone says something like that, you can be certain someone paid for each and every one of their thoughts.
I feel like people (even liberals) would be a lot more enthusiastic about the space program if it wasn't so deeply intertwined with the MIC and imperialism, and if it wasn't being used as blatant PR by irritating capitalists.
State-owned enterprises given a reasonable amount of social surplus, so that no one is left behind. Instead it's treated like a pet project for the wealthy, which is a bad look while we have rampant poverty, inequality, and other social dysfunctions that could be helped by a more just redistribution.
I like space exploration a lot and feel like Gil Scot Heron was right, it's a tense duality, a land of contrasts
If by mars you mean the Middle East and by scientists, you mean weapons, then yeah.
I mostly agree with this, there's huge potential for science & engineering out in the void, but I still have serious doubts human exploration missions will ever be more than publicity stunts.
Sending even a single human to Mars orbit for tele-operation would easily cost the same as scores of Perseverance probes for dubious benefit. Sending a human touchdown & return mission could easily get you hundreds of probes for the same cost. You may not get as quick or as through of a test, but you can afford to throw a half-dozen specialist probes at basically anything that catches your fancy.
the disposable-rocket era
I also fear this too, is here to stay. Tesla's done some nice work blowing the dust off granpap's test models, and getting really nice results on a concept we should have perfected 60 years ago, but you'll forgive me if I yawn a bit.
Like fuuuuck. We could have had ground-laser propulsion stations and rotovators and Verne guns. Refurbing the first stage of an explosive beercan tower is just disappointing for me I guess. We've done this. It sucks. Shit, we can't even get a NTR approved for a Mars-transfer orbit.
Just give me one measly little Orion launch. You could lift so many goddamn bootstraps into orbit...
EDIT: I got kind of rambly there, guess I'm trying to say as long as our idea of a "heavy lift" vehicle is a ~100 ton payload, we're already ceding everything outside HEO.
Which of our problems are solved by putting rich people in suborbital flights? I mean in the unfortunate circumstance that nothing goes wrong.
I wonder which the first country to launch a satellite, put a person in space, put a woman in space, put an animal in space, put a person in orbit, perform the first space walk, hard-land on the moon, soft-land on the moon, image the far side of the moon, return samples from the moon, soft-land on another planet, and establish a space station was, all with fewer astronaut deaths than Amerika?
:monke-beepboop:
You're correct, lovely images though .
Also this is interesting:
Russia going to try it again, maybe. Eventually.
Less racism too, I read an anecdote recently that said the U.S. moon landing heroes racistly bullied the only black astronaut candidate in the program, to the point where he quit.
Armstrong, etc. were silver spoon types who grew up with all the privilege in the world, descended from white settlers, attended top universities and so on, unlike Gagarin and Tereschkova, who had humble upbringings---true proletarian heroes.
I remember reading this too, I'll have a look for more info on it when I'm free :)
I am convinced that Robert Henry Lawrence was murdered for being the first black candidate in the us program
:meow-shining: :train-shining: :rosa-shining: :wolff-shining:
Side-note. Love how Sankara's eyes shine blue instead of red to show he truly was too pure for this world.
Over its 38-year history, the Soviet program achieved the first intercontinental ballistic missile (R-7), first satellite (Sputnik 1), first animal in Earth orbit (the dog Laika on Sputnik 2), first human in space and Earth orbit (Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1), first woman in space and Earth orbit (Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6), first spacewalk (Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2), first Moon impact (Luna 2), first image of the far side of the Moon (Luna 3) and uncrewed lunar soft landing (Luna 9), first space rover (Lunokhod 1), first sample of lunar soil automatically extracted and brought to Earth (Luna 16), and first space station (Salyut 1). Further notable records included the first interplanetary probes: Venera 1 and Mars 1 to fly by Venus and Mars, respectively, Venera 3 and Mars 2 to impact the respective planet surface, and Venera 7 and Mars 3 to make soft landings on these planets.
NASA's funding was cut and their program attacked for decades in order to get the private sector into its current position. We're like 30 years behind where we should be so Musky can get his rockets up there and have his ego stroked.
Yup, for like 20 years. We shut down the shuttles and refused NASA the means for a replacement.
I'm afraid not overthrowing the government is considered consent.
I hate how consent of the governed works the same way as consent at a frat party.
Sagan was very clear about that. Activate the G.U.N.D.A.M. protocols.
need as many entrepreneurs, investors, and capitalists as we can get
we already have as many as stolen surplus labor can support
If Elon musk loves space so much, why doesnt he go out there and stay there???
Tfw space exploration was pretty much invented by a communist state
