There is a decided visceral dislike among many conservatives for Elon Musk, and this piece over at The Federalist is a veiled example. I may write a rebuttal and see if Mollie or Sean will run it.
27 thoughts on “SpaceX Skepticism”
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I think it’s a combination of things. The one that has a lot to do with SpaceX are the expansive claims and the slipping schedules. Sure, I get that everyone in the aerospace industry has slipping schedules. But for people who put trust in people who live up to their word, Musk falls short.
Second, Musk has other businesses. And conservatives have reason to be not so enthusiastic about Tesla or SolarCity which is much more reliant on government handouts than SpaceX. So some of the dislike can be coming from Musk’s relationships with these more disliked businesses.
Yes, that explains the antipathy from conservatives. And they continually conflate the rewewable subsidies for consumer items (solar and electric cars) with development contracts for services NASA desperately (though not desperately enough to overcome their perception of risk to crew) needs.
Conservatives are a pack of hypocrites that out of one side of their faces argue for freedom, free trade, free economy, more opportunities for private enterprise while at the same time argue for big government programs, trade protectionism, corporate protectionism and less opportunities for private companies to compete with big government programs.
Conservatives aren’t of the right, they don’t even represent a true ideology, they’re just for themselves.
Hypocrisy is the universal condition, Andrew_W. But alas, not everyone brings the same sophistication and discernment to hypocrisy as I.
More seriously, there are ways to deal with hypocrisy. If it is intentional, expose it. If it is unintentional, then show how the hypocritical belief or behavior conflicts with desired goals.
But merely talking about stereotypes doesn’t do anything for us, particularly, when hypocrisy can be explained partly or completely simply because you’re stereotyping a mass of people with a variety of often widely divergent beliefs.
But the reason they’re Conservatives rather than Classical Liberals or Libertarians is that hypocrisy. They preach freedom, but only on their terms, Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism are consistent; free trade means free trade, free economy means free economy, same rules for all, with Conservatives there always needs to be an “except” to their advantage.
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/hayek-why-i-am-not-conservative.pdf
I don’t care for the politics of either Musk nor Bezos, but I can look beyond that. Ford and Edison were chummy with the Germans. Gates is globalist with eugenics leanings. Let’s just throw the bastards out and not have any cars, computers, electricity or space commerce.
She quotes The Economist:
The company’s Dragon space capsule, in which the moon tourists would fly, was developed to carry first cargo and, soon, people up to the International Space Station—services for which NASA pays generously.
Then vomits this:
So not only did SpaceX gladly lap up $2.6 billion in federal funds to develop technology to send people to the ISS, which they’ve yet to actually deliver on, but they’ve also turned around and are using that technology to start a space race with NASA.
No word on how much NASA would have paid for the services rendered by SpaceX had they gone with ULA etc.
What an idiot.
Yes, another selective non-mention, first company to successfully return and land a booster used to send a payload into orbit. Not to mention first private company to send a resupply mission to the ISS. So yes some missed deadlines but also some spectacular accomplishments. I’m not trying to be a SpaceX fanboy, the company, as all companies do, has its problems. But facts are facts. I think maybe a bit of her bias is showing?
Please do write a rebuttal. They paid the silly woman for that article?
I often find myself wincing at both sides of these arguments. I am quite open-eyed about the real nature of the SpaceX business model. Attempts to paint the market dynamics with SpaceX and ULA as “free markets vs. government space” are eye-rollingly naive (or at least, in that argument, which one is supposed to be ‘free market’ ought to be carefully examined). The idea that because SpaceX rolls out grandiose plans that are optimistic means we should believe them more than we believe in the #JourneyToMars is equally silly.
Still, I am thrilled to see SpaceX in the marketplace. I think they’ve had a tremendously positive influence. They’ve made ULA a better company and better competitor — indeed, they’ve helped to shift the climate to allow many companies to dream bigger and bolder. All of that is good. All of that will still be good, whether SpaceX ultimately becomes a successful and profitable business or whether it succumbs to the same competitive market it is helping to create. I can hope for their success without succumbing to their propoganda.
Veiled???
Most dancers’ll get arrested for dancing in public with a veil that thin!
You beat me to that comment! (Mine was: “Yes, quite veiled. She’s undoubtedly known as the Queen of Innuendo.”)
Obama was in a picture with Musk at a launch site. That is when I started hearing the screams.
Oh yes, I remember that very well. Heaven forbid a space executive should be seen in the company of the newly-elected President of the United States.
Not long after that came the screams of “Obama killed the Space Shuttle!”
The more imaginative version I heard at the time was “Obama got rid of NASA!”
I still see to this day claims that Obama changed NASA’s mission to “Muslim outreach”. I don’t even bother arguing with them any more.
Proving that lefties are hardly the only ones out there with jerky knees.
The one thing I have to agree with the article about is that Elon tends to be overly optimistic with his projected timelines. So if he says 2018, I’d imagine it will be more like 2019 or 2020.
And of course, that depends on there being no major problems with Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2, neither of which have flown yet.
Elon himself admits he’s not good at predicting. But the author doesn’t seem to understand the point of goals.
I had a friend whose father had the goal of owning 500 cows and worked until he achieved it. Unlike many, the bank didn’t own his cows. Then he spent the rest of his life regretting that he hadn’t set the goal of a 1000 head.
Had he done that and only reached 800, would he have been a failure?
FWIW there was a lot of backlash against this hit piece on the comments section there. Whatever you may think about SpaceX, sure they miss deadlines all the time (we usually take Elon’s predictions with a grain of salt), but their achievements aren’t something which can be easily dismissed.
BTW I have a picture of Falcon 9 with Dragon in the wall behind me. I’ve changed the Falcon 9 picture a couple times with the redesigns, but I still have CRS-1 Dragon there. Hopefully I’ll be able to replace it with Dragon 2 soon.
Wow. What a maroon. Did you see that timeline? Apparently the first important news about SpaceX is that one of their rockets blew up. Unbelievable.
She heard that they hope to go to the moon and “nearly split her sides laughing”. I wonder how she reacted when she heard that they planned to land a booster.
Landing a first stage on Earth is orders of magnitude more difficult than landing a lunar lander on the Moon.
Which is why it wasn’t done in the 1960s.
True, but the 60s had a number of plans that mostly involved parachutes: either dropping the stage into the sea, or catching it with a helicopter as it floated down to Earth, and returning it that way.
They didn’t happen because most launchers didn’t have high enough launch rates to make economic sense. Boeing, for example, calculated that you’d need to launch at least 60 Saturn Vs to break even on reusing the first stage if you landed it in the ocean, because of the high development and overhaul costs.
Bre Payton’s article was so biased, so transparently selective of the facts reported, and so lacking in applying the appropriate context it was worthy of a story from The New York Times!
I don’t like it when Conservatives or Libertarians pull that kind of reporting malpractice anymore than when the Left does it.
Because of the peculiar hostility the establishment Right has towards Elon Musk, this may be one of those situations it is a good thing that Trump became President instead most other Republicans. At least Musk might have a fair chance with Trump when it comes to space policy.
Gingrich seems favorable of SpaceX. And if Gingrich is advising Trump about space policy, then…?
Bre Payton’s article was so biased, so transparently selective of the facts reported, and so lacking in applying the appropriate context it was worthy of a story from The New York Times!
I was nearly tempted to see whether she lives in Hunstville.
“What’s really infuriating about SpaceX’s recent announcement is that its bold lunar travel plan is only possible thanks to support from taxpayers (read: suckers) like me.”
Yes that is infuriating! They should be more like NASA who announces bold plans without tax payer support! Oh wait…