Trump tells Musk to 'go get' Starliner astronauts An early morning post by US President Donald Trump caused some furrowed brows in the space community after he instructed Elon Musk to "go get" the crew of Boeing's Starliner, who are currently enjoying an unexpected stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS). In the post, Trump wrote: "I have just asked Elon Musk and @ …
Or senior managers since time immemorial. I always thought it was a good indication of a persons ethical fibre and a good predictor of their actual capability. The taking credit to competence is usually inversely proportional. Unless your a politician in which case it seems to be a fundamental requirement.
No doubt he'll make some big splash when they are "rescued" that he was responsible and they would have been there until they died if he hadn't won, and right wing media will play right along with it.
Of course if something went wrong and the SpaceX launch blew up on the pad or otherwise failed, Trump would distance himself from it immediately and place 100% of the blame on Elon.
Of course if something went wrong and the SpaceX launch blew up on the pad or otherwise failed, Trump would distance himself from it immediately and place 100% of the blame on Elon Biden or Hillary or Kamala or Merchan or somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds or any of his many, many bogeymen.
Well he already blamed DEI for the plane crash last night, without any evidence. That will become the narrative for a lot of his followers, even if it turns out white men were piloting both the plane and the helicopter. But boy if there's a black woman at the controls of either you will hear nothing but DEI on right wing media for weeks milking that, regardless of what qualifications she might have.
Yes I know it includes sex, sexual preference, handicaps all sorts of differences.
But if you look at the accusations on the right calling someone a "DEI hire" they are black 99% of the time. You watch, if one of the pilots in the aircraft or the helicopter is black Fox News is going to be spinning this "despite the howling from the left, Trump was proven right that DEI was the cause".
They might even do that if the helicopter pilot is a white woman, because apparently a lot of people on the right want to reverse the decision allowing women in combat roles. But if the airplane pilot is a white woman the whole "DEI is to blame" will fade away and they'll seize on something else to pin it on Biden.
When it comes to human space flight, of course I hope it all goes well.
But I am *so* looking forward to the inevitable fallout between Trump Baby and Teeny Musk. There is no way two such narcissistic egos can possibly co-exist for any length of time.
"There is no way two such narcissistic egos can possibly co-exist for any length of time."
I'm torn between wondering if it's a matter/anti-matter thing or more of nuclear critical mass type of explosion we are waiting for :-)
TheRegister readers include a significant population of techies and scientists with an interest in space. The staff keep up with events in space so can report on them with existing knowledge and contacts. If you look for the same story on Fox it reports Trump's and Musk's words without mentioning any of the clear evidence that the words do not match reality. I do not know to what extent Fox does not know any better, is deliberately supporting Trump or is just afraid to be honest. Certainly many of their readers do not know any better, partly from lack of interest and partly because their sources of news do not go the extra inch with fact checking.
NPR reported the background accurately. We will see which of NPR and Fox has a future.
"I do not know to what extent Fox does not know any better, is deliberately supporting Trump or is just afraid to be honest"
That's easy, ask uncle Rupert. It is 100% deliberate as was clearly displayed by the testimony of Rupert himself, and the many emails by Fox Entertainment personalities/pundits/sycophants presented as evidence during the trial that ended in a almost $800 million settlement because for some reason, at least several $billion of them, Fox decided that they really did not want this to go to a verdict. Tucker was the sacrificial goat, luckily it was well deserved.
**** I do not know to what extent Fox does not know any better, is deliberately supporting Trump or is just afraid to be honest.
They are almost literally the propaganda arm of the GOP. They wouldn't know honest if it bit them on the leg.
Honest news organizations don't settle defamation lawsuits for three quarters of a billion dollars.
I thought Trump voters had dropped Fox for being left wing main stream media.
More seriously, Fox was a bad example. It was the first link I clicked on to see how news* sites not related to space, science or technology were reporting this.
(*I should have remembered that according to Fox News lawyers, Fox News is not a news organization but is actually in the business of entertainment. As a result there is no requirement for their stories to have any connection to reality.)
Visiting Germany after the war, the philosopher Hannah Arendt confessed to being “oppressed by a kind of pervasive public stupidity which cannot be trusted to judge correctly the most elementary events ... A great number of Germans,” she wrote, “especially among the more educated, apparently are no longer capable of telling the truth even if they want to.”
From the article Israel and the delusions of Germany’s ‘memory culture’.
Presumably this also happened in the lead up to the war. Just saying that in case anyone here today wants to learn from history.
'Learning from History' is something that is 'Wanted after that fact' more than it is actually 'Done' when it could be useful !!!
It requires a level of self-awareness that is 'VERY' lacking in most Psychopaths ... this means WE are in great trouble, at this moment in time !!!
Is there a 'critical' mass for Psychopathy ???
i.e. The amount of Psychopathy in a 'room' that is needed to trigger a psychopathic melt-down/chain-reaction !!!
Trump, Putin, Musk ... who is brave enough to test this out ... asking for a friend ... of course !!!
P.S.
Interesting article !!!
"... no longer capable of telling the truth even if they want to.” ... this appears to be an on-going issue globally !!!???
Possibly deserving of further investigation ... 'truth' is very much lacking in society as a whole and we are all diminished by its absence !!!
By happenstance, the Television programme 'The Traitors', in various versions around the world, has taken off and is watched by many .. appearing to promote 'lies' and 'deception' as traits that are NOT 100% frowned upon !!!
:)
The people vigorously defending SpaceX as criticisms of Musk have mounted should really understand that a complete lack of accountability have led us to the point where flat out lies are normalised.
Allowing "the vision" to override reasonable analysis of the business practises, government manipulation and practical progress towards stated goals leads us to the point where it all looks just a little bit corrupt.
Then they see a Starship launch, and realise that a company isn't just its head, but a huge number of other people, actually run by someone who isn't Musk, and realise it ain't too bad.
SpaceX are a great company, with a head who has gone a bit off the rails. But it's still a great company doing great things irrespective of the guy in charge.
It's a company who's founder engineers did great things - the Falcon 9 - and then left.
Whether it's doing great things or being dragged into bad decisions by a boss who veers between hyper-obsession and complete distraction is another question.
But sure, look at the pretty rocket.
Do you not understand the concept of risk? NASA never said that the capsule was not fine, they said that the risk of a failure during the capsule return was too high to be acceptable. That too high level may have only been 1%, but with the lives of two astronauts on the line they decided that it was too high.
The chances were that the capsule would return safely, and it did, but there was an unacceptable risk involved. So the fact that the capsule made it back is no reason for their decision to be wrong.
.
Now if you wish to argue this further either please stop posting as AC, cos if you continue then everyone will just assume that you are a troll.
"they said that the risk of a failure during the capsule return was too high to be acceptable"
Well, 14 astronauts later (not counting Apollo 1) at least they did learn something very important from previous mistakes. I for one am very happy that they now make that their go to approach. It was really a no-brainer given the number of problems they encountered on this and the previous mission.
Musk thought he would get an office in the west wing and report directly to the president. He got an office across the road and reports to the chief of staff. He has swallowed the insult without even calling Trump a 'Pedo Guy' on Twitter. Looks like he is completely house trained.
Additional Info:
You are aware that Psychopaths DO NOT play well !!!
Trump & Musk & Putin are 3 such personalities ... therefore someone is NOT going to backdown when they feel that they have been OFFENDED !!!
Chances are that that will be in the range (more than ONE and less than FOUR) ... fireworks will be happening real soon ... globally !!!
Putin is in Dictator-mode ... ditto Trump (anything 'you' can do 'I' can do 'better' ... cue song !!!) ... Musk is playing for time while he assesses the playbook he needs to invoke.
The victims in all this is 'every one of us' whether in the US of A or elsewhere ... Trade wars, Political oneupmanship, basic revenge and fragile egos abound !!!
These ill-considered standpoints allied with generally 'muddy' thinking start REAL wars, because someone did not bother to think through actions/reactions & unintended consequences.
:)
"Chances are that that will be in the range (more than ONE and less than FOUR) ... fireworks will be happening real soon ... globally !!!"
Any evidence for that ?
Globally, most likely as there are plenty of launchers undergoing development in various countries so not really a difficult prediction. Or do you mean production launchers ?
NASA could have ordered this, but they had other budgetary priorities.
As a private person, I can clearly see why not spending an extra $100+M to bring the astronauts back promptly might be good financial management.
As an observer of government, I would note that NASA has just as much, if not more, bloat as any other government agency. They prioritize maintaining their bloat over bringing their astronauts promptly.
It's certainly ironic that the people that got elected on the premise of government efficiency seem to be blowing $100+M to move a scheduled task up a few months. It's even more ironic to conduct a mission like this against Trump's notorious historic lack of personal loyalty. It would be much nicer if Musk gave Trump a deal on the retrieval, as SpaceX's internal cost of a Falcon 9 launch is allegedly around $17M. The dragon capsule obviously adds to this, but Musk could probably knock 50% off the mission price and still make a nice gross profit.
There will not be an extra mission. Crew 10 will launch when ready and Crew 9 will return shortly after. The big change will be the words, claiming that Trump came to the rescue and Biden didn't. Likewise Trump will work hard tonight to make the sun rise tomorrow.
The big drag on NASA's finances is SLS+Orion. NASA are required to spend money on it by law. Before, congress would have to pass a law to end SLS funding. These days, Trump is trying to select what gets funded and scrapped without going through congress. That will cause a fight. I do not know who will win. SLS is particularly hard to predict. Long term, it is a barrier to a sustained presence on the Moon because it can only launch 4 people once every 2+ years. Short term, Orion is currently the only crew rated capsule that can (probably) return from NRHO. How much does Trump want Artemis 3 before the end of his second term? Does Trump expect to be president for life? Will that be more or less than 4 years?
Much as I love space exploration it is insignificant compared to the imminent power struggle between congress and Trump. Trump has to replace the federal government with loyal supporters before getting impeached by congress (again) and actually convicted by the senate. Congress and the senate have to realize they have to act fast before either becoming a puppet show or getting arrested.
Well, it does seem suspiciously unfair that every day, China receives the newly minted fresh sunshine first, and then America only gets their leftovers rays hours later. That doesn't scream "America First", not at all, right? And yet, what has Biden done to change this? AFAICT, nothing.
Republicans won house and senate but not all of them are Trump supporters. A combination of Democrats and non-Trump supporting Republicans might still be able to oust Trump. Trump will promptly slam the door hard on everyone who fails his loyalty tests.
"Trump has to replace the federal government with loyal supporters before getting impeached by congress (again) and actually convicted by the senate"
Trump would have to do something even more outrageously stupid/illegal for that to happen. Given that he has already incited insurrection, participated in a large scale multi-pronged attempt to overthrow an election, was taped attempting to blackmail a state government official to illegally change the vote count of that election, was taped confessing that he was in possession of classified documents illegally and showing them to people that did not have clearance, pardoned people that beat police officers during the insurrection, just to name a very few of the very many is that even possible? I certainly don't see how.
I would like to think Trump blocking congress's budget will be sufficiently stupid / illegal. It will not cause popular outrage but it is a direct threat to the people with an actual vote for impeachment and conviction.
Jared Isaacman is currently going through the confirmation process for the role of Administrator of NASA. This is typically a time for the nominee to keep his mouth shut and not say anything controversial. The period during the handover between Bill Nelson and Jared is handled by acting administrator Janet Petro. Janet was appointed by Trump in his first term and has leapt to implement Trump's recent executive orders with alacrity and gusto. Jared is a space fan but has not been a vocal Trump supporter. The timing suggests Trump wants to do as much damage as possible before Jared arrives. I expect Trump will test Jared's loyalty at the first opportunity: repeat Trump's ridiculous lies or get fired.
"repeat Trump's ridiculous lies or get fired." Yep, that is Trumps MO both to test loyalty and tie the fortunes of people to his own success by a self reinforcing process - the more people support him the more they are dependent on him so the more they support him.
At some point he'll have enough localists in the Federal government, then Democracy in the USA is dead.
The reason the astronauts are still there is because NASA is too cheap to add in another flight to return them and preferred to change up the roster and push back the flights of other astronauts and their missions.
I can't believe the pompous comments from those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome and the Musk variety - fine if you want to say it's not worth the money to add in an extra flight (which could also feature more supplies or experiments) to return Butch and Sunni in a timely manner, but don't act like any other opinion is completely stupid.
If we were having a debate about whether to spend the money on an extra retrieval, your comment would be relevant.
Since there is no extra retrieval, it isn't.
If you think this is about an extra retrieval, I suggest you read it again. If you still think that, feel free to cite where this is indicated, since the latest delay is on Spacex's part.
Have you considered that Butch & Suni are astronauts and as such might be grateful to have extended their stay in space? They're fully trained, willing and able to participate in all the activities on the ISS so are making a positive contribution while they're up there.
They're not stranded on some desert island. They're literally doing the job that they've been training for, which takes a hell of a lot of work to get.
If they had a need to come back sooner, that would've been arranged - as the article pointed out.
What if they just received an email telling them there's a fork in the road, and they decided to take it?
I mean, Elon can't be happy about all the overtime they'll be due when they finally come back, right? Definitely not efficient at all for government employees to be up there and quite literally not even carrying their own weight.
They had 3 F9 failures last year, one of which was a second stage in orbit which wouldn't have been great for a crew dragon mission. However they have since eliminated the part that failed as they have deemed its not actually needed, a general philosophy of Musk.
Realistically, if your asshole PHB tells you to do something that you're already doing, are you going to:
A) say, "yessir, right away sir" and save yourself the hassle of trying to explain something they won't bother to try to understand, even if they could, gaining some brownie points from the PHB in the process; or
B) try to explain, making the PHB look (even more) stupid, and gain his displeasure for already doing what he wants?
It's just easier and simpler to accept credit for doing what you're already doing. None of which is to say that his muskiness and, particularly, Trump aren't prize plonkers to start with, but I don't blame Elon fur just going with the flow here. And if he's going to get paid to send up an extra dragon, what's not to like?
C) Say "Yessir, right away", but actually stop doing it. Do something useful instead. Take a coffee break. The finish it off at a relaxed pace, and tell the boss I have finished it. Then claim 100 different challenges while still succeeding. Never let an opportunity like that go to waste.
Pretty much everything NASA does is subject to political pressure, usually from senators who want NASA to give money to various aerospace companies, who will then build facilities in that senator’s state (and bung the senator a bunch of 'campaign contributions' at the same time).
About the only bi-partisan thing in US politics is taking bungs. Allegedly
I've come up with a couple of completely fabricated conspiracy theories about this:
1) There's secretly an issue with the upcoming Crew 10 mission which would delay the return of Crew 9 past February, so this is a way of saving face.
2) If Crew 9 leave now, that will only leave one US astronaut on the ISS, leaving it ripe for a takeover 'special military operation' by Russia.
3) Aliens.
If the rumours are to be believed there are further issues with the new Dragon capsule (no name yet as Crew 10 will get to do that). One option being considered is to delay Axiom mission 4 and use their capsule which is already prep'ed for a ISS mission, for Crew 10 if needed. It would also mean that Crew 10 could potentially launch earlier then currently planned, hence the 'rescue' part.
Probably need to stop laughing, as I mentioned a few days ago that there might be a capsule swap looks like there are battery problems with C213 the new capsule and Crew-10 will indeed be using Endurance which was due to be used for Axiom 4. Reports are that if they waited for C213 then station supplies would be approaching 'redlines'. Through in an increasing busy schedule with private and cargo missions along Starliner retest all potentially happening before the end of the year.
Expected launch date for Crew-10 is now around now earlier than 12th March with Crew-9 returning about a week later.
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