Mere weeks after Starship's breakup, the vehicle may soon fly again

I am worried that the good people at SpaceX might decide to abandon ship because of the Musk association. The money might be good, the work fantastic and exciting, but at some point saying "I work at SpaceX/Tesla/whatever" will become dangerous to one's health?

Musk put good people in charge of some of these companies, Gwynne Shotwell is a great example, but his sphere if influence is big enough that the collateral damage could be significant.

No, we can hate Musk all we want, but we shouldn't rewrite history because we despise him. He is a complex individual, and he still deserves the credit for founding SpaceX and being chief engineer.

Aren't you attempting to disconnect something that is not disconnected?

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It doesn’t justify bypassing safety regulation checks

Is there no vetting of people who either hold office or senior government positions in the US now? One of the most basic things you do when doing a security clearance is checking that you don't have any bad things in your closet. Substance abuse, debt to shady people, gambling habit, mistresses, ... anything and everything that could be used to blackmail you would be a big fat no on your security clearance. Their 4chan accounts and every gaming chat since 1998 should be scanned for weird comments.

I get that it's hard to do for top elected officials - they are elected with flaws and all after all, and it's the job of the people to try to guess and judge whether someone, say, has had unknown extramarital affairs or holds bad debt, that could lead to them being compromised.

Not saying Musk would insta-fail his security clearance process but he sure wouldn't have a good time being questioned about what he said in a 4chan post or game chat in 2004, or being asked about every pill he took since 2000.

The issue is that he is doing actual damage because it turns out that what was thought to be an aspirational goal (going to Mars) is the actually only goal. That means all the uses this new capability has become superfluous until that goal is achieved.

To me it became clear he is actually a moron and there is no deeper plan when the aspirational starship concept wasn't paired with him pointing out the other advantages it has.

For example:

* the estimated useable m³ capacity makes a special variant of a starship the equivalent to the ISS in capacity - now imagine docking 4 of those to a HUB. And that is without reusing the wet-workshop concept of space-lab.

* for the same reason nobody point out that it makes zero sense to use a starship as a landing system and not turn it into an instant moon base. The wet workshop concept applies here as well.

That is just two ways starship could be used as soon as it is orbit capable - Neither would need atmospheric re-entry

One of the most consequential substance abuse issues of all time?

He would never abuse substances! He loves the substances!

This one feels different. Musk and Trump are doing real damage to trust, US soft power and government institutions all of which have taken decades to build. They're trying to do things that could lead to pensioners having their income cut off, hundreds of thousands of people entering the job market suddenly, and whatever economic effects that brings. Then the actions actually leading to more deaths in Ukraine and emboldening Putin, and whatever that brings with it.

The main thing is that these are the kinds of actions that can't be reversed overnight if power flips. eg, You can't just rehire an entire department and have them operating effectively. We'll be feeling these things for years afterwards, possibly decades.

They're causing real damage, and it's intentional.

Fine for you, perhaps, but not fine for everybody.

You seem to be speaking from a position of privilege though. A white, straight male who already has accumulated some assets will probably be fine. I'm not so sure about everyone else though.

I also think framing this as just a culture war is downplaying the dismantling of the US government and US influence around the world. Cozying up to Putin for example, will likely have geopolitical ramifications for decades.

> Take a break. Take a kitkat. It's going to fine.

Tell that to people in Ukraine who were invaded by Russia. They were provided support by the US. Our leader and Musk are now blaming the victim and want them to surrender to the invader. Or pay $500B for US to give them additional support.

This is what we have come down to. People are dying and we are trying to shake them down like a mafia. Even mafia bosses are not that heartless.

Tell the Ukrainian kids hiding under desks from incoming missiles to take a break and take a kitkat.