Elon Musk calls for International Space Station to be deorbited by 2027 SpaceX boss Elon Musk has called for the International Space Station (ISS) to be deorbited as soon as possible, perhaps by 2027. Yesterday, Musk tweeted on his social media mouthpiece, X, that: "It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station". He claimed the outpost had served its purpose and "There is very …
Not a random guy, but the CEO of the United States. This is the level of enshitment the world has reached.
China will be the next and the only space faring nation. Europe will be left behind.
The ISS was the product of a short era of decent collaboration before Putin came and conquered everything using Trump and Musk.
It's interesting to contemplate the fact that His Muskiness is suddenly an expert on Science and a visionary when it comes to deciding what should be or not be done in space.
The ISS has invaluable utility and, if it does need to be replaced, it needs to be done in the most progressive way possible, preserving what exists and allowing for a new station to be built before decommissioning the old one.
Musk has a habit of throwing his toys out of the pram.
He is not qualified to decide on how Science should advance.
Unfortunately, he's got the position now, for a mere $250 million.
Although it does seem that the far right do like to accuse others of committing exactly the same crimes that they are intending to, or already, committing. Like being in cahoots with some ultra-rich cabal of dodgy billionaires. Like embezzling funds. Like committing various sexual offences. And. Ahem. Paedophilia. Or it could just be nonce-sense.
I’m sure the teenage boy who was fired for stealing company secrets at his internship (he’s never had a real job) is perfectly qualified for the role involving protecting the private data of hundreds of millions of people. He’s certainly experienced enough that Musk made him a “senior”
He also continued to access company servers:
"“Edward has been terminated for leaking internal information to the competitors. This is unacceptable and there is zero tolerance for this,” an executive wrote in a team chat.“The penalty for consorting with the enemy,” Path’s CEO said.
Less than two months later, Coristine himself, posting under the username Rivage, boasted in an online chatroom that he maintained access to Path Network’s systems after he was terminated.
“I had access to all the game hosting machines for months after termination cry-laughing-emoji cry-laughing-emoji cry-laughing-emoji” Coristine posted in a Discord channel.
There are also points, with this story, that the ISS takes up valuable orbit space that could more profitably be utilised by X, and that less government money to NASA means more to the private sector (e.g. Space X).
And "teenage" seems too much credit. To me, the orange one and his musky appear to behave like primary school kids in the playground (with about the same level of intellect). Basic rules are:
1) Whatever you say is true - because you say it is.
2) Feel free to bully anyone small er than you.
3) Be nice to anyone bigger than you - and remember that big friends help with #2.
> Musk has a habit of throwing his toys out of the pram.
Musk has a habit of throwing other peoples' toys out of the pram.
Remember that this is the prick who accused one of the main figures involved in the 2018 Thailand cave rescue of being a "pedo guy", purely because that person was openly critical of the flaws in Musk's ill-conceived plan to rescue them by building a mini sub. (*)
In the event, the sub wasn't built, and all the children were rescued successfully by teams of experienced divers. Who would want to bet that would have been the case had they risked waiting for Musk's sub *and* relied on it working, just so Musk got to be the Big Hero of the piece?
I mention this because it's clear that self-glorification and self-enrichment are key motivators for Musk, and the Not-Invented-Here ISS neither involved him nor makes him enough money.
(*) I think it was at this point that it started becoming clearer to many more people- myself included- just what a piece-of-shit excuse for a human being Musk actually is.
We are still waiting for Musk to show us his sub working: “We will make [a video] of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo.”
Presumably it will be FSD itself down there.
"preserving what exists and allowing for a new station to be built before decommissioning the old one."
There's no way a new station can be designed, built and deployed before 2030 to replace ISS. Keeping ISS going past that point may be taking on more risk since it's wearing out in ways that can't be easily repaired.
I think Elon's desire is more about how having the station in orbit affects Starlink with the tens of thousands more satellites that he needs to get into LEO. That and if there is a push for a new station, he'd be able to scoop up some more money to keep SpaceX afloat without coming to the point where he'd have to put more of his own money in.
"I think Elon's desire is more about how having the station in orbit affects Starlink with the tens of thousands more satellites that he needs to get into LEO. That and if there is a push for a new station, he'd be able to scoop up some more money to keep SpaceX afloat without coming to the point where he'd have to put more of his own money in."
I don't doubt he's chasing it for his own self-interest, but why would the ISS affect Starlink?
It turned out to be a place to park two astronauts while their Boeing capsule did a test re-entry to see if would survive de-orbit. Didn't sound like anyone except Boeing was sure it would make it down unscathed. Lost enough astronauts during ascent, descent and on the ground. Not the muskox's hide that was a risk.
Many/most US presidents (and I suspect leaders around the world and throughout history) have had unofficial advisors. Trump is being open and honest about it, relatively speaking.
Something tells me that Joe Biden was not the person controlling the content of his teleprompter and "his" policies. Just a hunch.
H. Clinton made a snootload of money BEFORE she ran for president by being a horrible public speaker. You think those people paying didn't have "interest" in the outcome of the election, or plan to remind her of their support after she got elected?
Your point is valid. It should be a concern about ALL leaders, not just the ones you voted against.
Place your "whataboutery" somewhere moist and dark if you would.
Trump is open and honest about nothing. He is an ignorant, ignorant, misogynistic, orange bully, who likes the company of bullies (such as Musk, Putin, Fat boi kim, et al). He is a proven tax dodger, rapist, liar, bribe payer, he ran off with state secrets last time he was president. He is liked by the countries who wish the US harm, and abhorred by your allies and the people who hitherto have shared most of the same values of fairness and democracy as the US.
Unofficial advisors are nothing new, nothing abnormal, but that's not what we're seeing. The nearest parallel to the way that Trump is ensuring that he controls everything through his chosen arse-lickers would be the way that Hitler cemented his power through the SS. It is a common misconception that Hitler used violence to assert control, and that the SS were a military force. The reality is that military Waffen-SS were a tiny and insignificant part of the wider SS, which was more like a civil service loyal to him, and controlled the budget, asserted control over industry, science, education, citizens records, justice....is that sounding familiar yet?
The obligatory ACOUP as to why Trump is a fascist, not that it bothers his fascist supporters in any way:
https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-definition-of-fascism/
One thing for him, he surely gets the speedrun record of going full fascist – even Hitler himself took a few years!
Use of the acronym "TDS" is a very strong indicator that the speaker has absolutely nothing with which to back up his idolatry of the Convicted Criminal in Chief and has invoked the magic phrase as a method of turning off his brain, lest he suddenly realize that said CCiC is nothing more than a lying, cheating, convicted criminal piece of shit with absolutely zero redeeming characteristics whatsoever.
"surely he likes dogs?"
Nope. From what I understand, he has never had a pet of any kind. In fact, he's the only president since Andrew Johnson (1865 to 1869) to not have a pet in the White House, and only the third president to not have a pet or pets ... the other was James K. Polk (1845 to 1849).
One thing that unnerves me about him (at a more basic level than, you know, everything he says or does) is his inability to laugh at jokes. You see it in some people from time to time, and it speaks to a sociopathic/psychopathic tendency from what I can tell, but it's really unsettling to watch once you've tuned into it.
You tend to find "nice" people who are generous with laughter at jokes and finding other people funny (deliberately funny that is, not laughing at others' misfortune) - a strong example of this are comedians like Miles Jupp and Jimmy Carr - they genuinely seem to delight in other people being funny. But Trump sits there stoically or grumpily, that the attention isn't on him.
"In fact, he's the only president since Andrew Johnson (1865 to 1869) to not have a pet in the White House"
Yeah, well, Sleepy Joe's dog going around and biting the staff wasn't a good thing. I expect any that have been held over are just fine with there being nothing running around with sharp teeth and special status.
TDS like other derangement syndromes is named after it's cause. The planet knows who is deranged... and the source of that derangement and it's Trump. It is similar to a Trump supporter calling another person gullible in that it's extremely ironic. Too bad we can't hear the "Derp" before they speak.
I don't remember any recent world leader announcing that someone was "The head of [this new government department] and doing a fine job", and that that same person was a Special Government Employee, before testifying in court that this person had no direct role with said department, wasný employed either by the department OR the government, and that his only input was as an advisor.
Perhaps you could refresh my memory on that one.
Don't worry. They've both promised that Musk will identify any areas of self-interest and won't involve himself. I'm sure it'll be fine. There's no conflict of interest between the owner of SpaceX and NASA operations. None.
In all seriousness, as the owner of a major social media platform (Twittex), telecoms provider (Starlink), transport company (Tesla) and space (SpaceX), I can't see how there are any areas of government left that he can legitimately get involved in.
genuinely loving the ONE Apartied Clyde fan on this forum downvoting anyone who says anything nasty.
the funny thing is that ACTUAL techies and engineers know what a useless twat he is. It's the ones that want to pretend to look clever that are fans.
What is even funnier are the Tesla owners suddenly all crying now about their Wankwagons and how everyone hates them saying things like "we bought ours before the nazi salute"
but you bought them after the Paedo Comment, after the union bashing & ignoring employee complaints about racism, bullying, injuries in the factories and being forced to work unpaid overtime
you bought them AFTER he paid $250,000 to an air stewerdess he got his cock out in front of. After his twitter bullshit & after all his white supremacy stuff on twitter as well as his continual whining about anyone that says anything that isn't praise about him online.
Elonia has been a cock from day one AND the cars are shit..
Think bigger, I would say they have a contract to supply X number of missions until 2030. With no exclusion of the ISS not actually being there. If they deorbit early, they still get to keep the contract as they are willing to keep up their side of it, without the expensive of actually have to do it.
"I would say they have a contract to supply X number of missions until 2030. With no exclusion of the ISS not actually being there."
Plausible. But not likely I think. Typically US government contracts don't work that way. Amongst all the hundreds of paragraphs forbidding the hassling of endangered species, requiring the contractor to fill in any holes they dig in the landscape, forbidding discrimination against midgets, etc,etc,etc. there are clauses that allow the government to cancel the contract at will. When they do that, the contractor is reimbursed for any expenses already incurred in anticipation of future missions, and the government picks up a lot of the costs of relocating contractor personnel, cancelling facility leases, etc. At least that used to be the case in the 20th century. I doubt it has changed.
> Typically US government contracts don't work that way...
> there are clauses that allow the government to cancel the contract at will.
At will, there is the key. Trump would allow a contract to his bestie to be cancelled just for some silly little reason like the ISS isn't there any more?
Not that Trump'd know, it'd be DOGE in charge of deciding which payments are a boondoggle and which are in the benefit of the American People, sorry, Person.
You are missing the big picture. Musk has no long term interest in dollars from the government. He considers both to be outdated and is actively destroying them. The replacements will be crypto and AI algorithms controlled by corporations. The first moves involve RAGE (retire all government employees) then filling the gaps with a mixture of programmers and incompetents. The programmers move the databases to corporations so they cannot be inspected by the public. The incompetents make what is left of government not worth saving. Any government functions Musk considers worth saving will be carried out by corporations.
You know what, a few months ago your whole post would have sounded like the tinfoil hatted ravings of a mad man.
Now, however, I can actually see that as a discussion point for when they were deciding their actual plan, and which bits to tell us about and when.
It raises interesting questions like, do we still need a government (yes)? Should it maintain the same areas of authority it always has regardless of the march of technological progress (no)?
The real debate is how much of government should we be automating, outsourcing to the private sector, and just plain stopping doing in it's entirety.
If you could get people to put aside partisan politics and entrenched beliefs for long enough to be constructive about it, the country (any western country) could deliver much better outcomes to it's citizens.
My fear here is the doge crowd will go too far too fast, break too much, and the actual merit of the idea will be engulfed in the inferno they leave behind.
The real debate is how much of government should we be automating, outsourcing to the private sector, and just plain stopping doing in it's entirety.
Outsourcing is not the answer for government services. They don't prove to be any more efficient when they get to the necessary size. There are any number of large company failures you could point to, with Boeing being the current poster child for mismanagement. All outsourcing does it add a profit motive. Can you tell me private insurance is cheaper or more effective that Medicare? The question is; is it a service the government should be providing? If it is, then it should be modernized. This goes for any government entity.
Examples:
Federal - Medicare for all
All levels - social safety net
Local - water and sewer service
Local - high speed internet
The balance is not just an American problem. The selection of services the public demand are what differentiates today's democracies.
My fear here is the doge crowd will go too far too fast, break too much, and the actual merit of the idea will be engulfed in the inferno they leave behind.
I think they are creating such a mess that it's going to be impossible to reduce the deficit any time soon. Destroying trust in elected leaders. We are headed toward some disaster (food or transportation safety, FEMA, potential military conflict with Trump toadies in charge) and there won't be sufficient power to stop it until a lot of people get hurt. The only way for DOGE to have any legitimacy would be for Trump to say "no tax cuts for anyone until the debt is under control". My fear is the American public will sell their future for a one time $5000 check from President Musk.
Well, in fairness to Musk, I had no idea the little wee lad had been on the transformational road he's been on and would objectively expected to kick his ass without breaking a sweat.
30 seconds of research later I now expect the reversal of that to be true using the same evaluation criteria I'd used before. I'm genuinely impressed by Zucks training.
With the training he's now had and the shape he's in, less than 1% of people would be able to beat Zuck in a fight now. I may dislike him but I respect his skills and the effort it takes to acquire them, even with money no object time and tuition.
See JoshOvki's suggestion above: if Musk is contracted to supply NASA until 2030 but the ISS comes down early, SpaceX then show *their* half of the contract was held up (pointing to a stack, apparently ready to go) and demand NASA keep up their half (i.e. PAY).
Literally money for nothing (just keep the stack dusted and add a few theatre smoke machines for that "boiling off" look).
How would giving up a "lucrative contract" free up funds to develop anything?
It seems to me as if Musk is trying to cut out the middleman i.e. NASA and funnel money straight from the US taxpayer directly into his pocket. That way he gets all the money without having to do anything for it.
A leech, a fantasist and a real danger to the whole world.
People in the Kremlin must be laughing their heads off at the shit-show.
This. Let's not forget that he suddenly wanted the ISS to be de-orbited after the actual commander of the ISS called Moron Man out on his lying. Musk should stick to things he understands, such as separating fools investors from their money with science fiction stories written for children.
He's never had to, much like Trump, because he's always had Daddy's money and so people don't say no to him or publicly disagree with him when he talks bollocks.
Expert diver says submersible is useless and a publicity stunt for cave rescue as caves are too narrow even for divers in SCUBA gear. Diver publicly accused of being a paedophile based on his appearance.
Twitter employee points out Musk's lack of understanding of how the site is coded. Employee fired via twitter.
Astronaut points out that Musk's claim that Biden left the astronauts stranded for political reasons is "a lie". Musk calls astronaut an idiot, then ignores him when the astronaut gives a calm and reasoned explanation of why Musk is wrong.
There's 3 examples, and I'm willing to bet with a bit of research that there are hundreds more. Musk and Trump live is a bubble where sycophants agree with them and anyone who doesn't is "radical left".
"Expert diver says submersible is useless and a publicity stunt for cave rescue as caves are too narrow even for divers in SCUBA gear. Diver publicly accused of being a paedophile based on his appearance."
Excellent description of how stupid Musk's idea was (ex-certified diver here). This incident is when my opinion of Musk completely changed. He has only gone further down that rabbit hole further with no hope of return since.
Or it just shows the values that the American electorate hold close. Mind you we already knew that. They could have had their first woman president, but all the red-necks and primitives invented a narrative that she was unfit for power, either by virtue of her gender, or being of mixed race.
I'd recommend everybody who voted Trump go out and buy some Klan robes (except for those who who don't need to go out and buy more).
While in no way any real excuse of the left-pondian electorate being utterly dumb in electing ChiefTwat™ again, they have also been heavily gerrymandered by the Reps in the past decades whenever they held any part of local power. Meaning any US elections simply "democratic" aren't...
Gerrymandering wasn't enough last time. The electoral map matches voter suppression laws. The basic strategy was to send a post card that looks like junk mail to black, hispanic and asian households. Anyone who did not tick the box and return the post card got removed from the electoral register. Anyone who noticed was given a "temporary ballot"(1) "until their eligibility was confirmed"(2).
1: a ballot that was not counted. 2: never.
Please note that almost half of all voters, including myself did not vote for him either time he won. However I share the amazement of just how dumb way too many of us Americans are to not be able to figure out just how toxic this guy is. Especially after the almost infinite number of red flags during his life previous to and during three presidential campaigns, and of course his first term in office. I mean I just can;t fathom the stupidly stupid stupidity. Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to say that in any way that comes close to how I really feel. That is just a gross (in every sense) approximation.
Please note that almost half of all voters, including myself did not vote for him either time he won.
Correction, more than half did not vote for him.
According to Wikipedia
2016 Turnout 60.1% - Hillary Clinton 65,853,514 48.2% - Pussy Grabber 62,984,828 46.1%
2024 Turnout 63.9% - Orange Felon 77,302,580 49.8% - Kamala Harris 75,017,613 48.3%
And just for comparison
2020 Turnout 66.6% - Joe Biden 81,283,501 51.3% - COVID Killer 74,223,975 46.8%
Easily. First having been born into some money (it really helps if your Pa is a diamond mining mogul fascist in South Africa), then by joining the C-suite even if others chuck you out of it for being dumb (as did actually happen with him and PayPal – he got fired). Get enough money, you can do anything, including being an apartheid scum fascist.
Remember that Musk won the legal case against him because he....
> [insisted that] the phrase "pedo guy" was commonly used in his native South Africa and meant "creepy old guy", rather than being an allegation of paedophilia.
Obvious bullshit. But he won on that basis regardless.
That being the case, Musk- a man well into middle age- has shown himself to be the epitome of a creepy weirdo in numerous ways, so by the definition he got the court to accept he can likely be considered a "pedo guy".
> Remember that Musk won the legal case against him because he....
On the basis of that report I suggest that we henceforth refer to Musk as "Child Rapist" since, apparently, he meant by that nothing more than "creepy guy". Which he (Musk) evidently is.
Elon "creepy guy" Musk.
Or,
Elon "Child Rapist" Musk.
You decide.
-A.
It will be - interesting - to hear what is said when astronauts Wilmore and Williams return back to Earth and aren't showing signs of having been "trapped" in space, but merely the usual physical tiredness of a crew when returning from a perfectly normal (plus a few days) length of mission on board the ISS.
If this were a bad SciFi movie, I'd expect the billionaire in control of their re-entry vehicle to arrange "a little accident", maybe just in their individual air supplies, "see, they suffered from having been up there too long". Or maybe a bit more dramatic (have the rest of Crew-9 been "behaving appropriately"?).
Hopefully, instead all we will have is tall tales from certain quarters, praising the two for "putting on such a brave face" and how "we must let them rest from their ordeal and not take anything they say as anything more than ramblings of clearly exhausted, but brave - oh, very brave - individuals".
Whatever happens, Mister X will try to put so much spin on it that we'll believe he is trying to beat that centrifuge launch company at their own game. Or he'll not bother and just call them names.
Simpler to just not mention what they say on X. They days of independent journalism in the US are numbered (not a large number because Musk has trouble with arithmetic).
It might have a little accident.
* So sorry, StarLink birds aren't supposed to be up that high.
* My DOGE expert only had root privileges to find where the payments went. How could he know a push to production could do that to the gyroscopes?
* Biden shot at it with a catapult.
" implying Mogensen has an intellectual disability (although he went for the pejorative)"
Look, if Musk called Morgensen a RETARD*, just report the news. We can draw our own conclusions.
* Use of the dreaded "R Word" was guessed at, from reading the provided politically correct summary. Clicking the link (which might be the reason for the weaseling: Click bait) quickly showed: "Yes, Musk did call Mogensen a retard."
Aren't we at the point where such a childish insult tells us more about the person using the slur, than about the person Musk intended to slur? The last thing I wanted to do was read a post on X (aka the service formerly known as Twitter), but you made me click.
At this moment, I am thinking that Mr Musk is "just some random creepy guy" who is "not an elected official"
Lawyers - kindly refer to:
He said that at the time he thought Mr Unsworth was "just some random creepy guy" who was "unrelated to the rescue".
How the West Was Won
The film centers on a family and their descendents over the span of decades as they explore and settle the American frontier of the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_West_Was_Won_(film)
How the West Was Lost
Watch in real-time as Trump and his acolytes destroy the United States from within
I fear that from my side of the Atlantic it is likely to be more a case of '....watch in real time as Trump and his acolytes disrupt, destabilise and destroy the so-called 'Free World'....., probably beginning with an invasion of Western Europe, as thanks to wet politicians since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe has left Europe itself with insufficient means to defend ourselves against a threat from the USA, and a significant proportion of what Europe does have at its own disposal is USA designed and built.
Disrupt, Destabilse and Invade is what their current behaviour and language is all about.
Terminating the ISS early is a logical part of that - removes another symbol of international cooperation, and creates potential for further opportunities to destabilise the relations between hitherto friendly states.
Well, the way things have been going under his "leadership", the flight trajectory will be calculated by a 16 year old racist, programmed by a sleep deprived Twitter engineer and activated by some conspiracy addled nutjob, bringing it crashing down on a major city and causing pandemonium. Musk will respond by firing the entire Nasa staff and getting a $20 billion government grant to clean up the mess with a fleet of Optimus robots sent there in cybertrucks.
That a man can be so far up his own ass as well as someone else’s!
Ouroboros like? Proktoboros?
Curiously if one were to proceed to insert ones head into ones rectum and continue up tract no matter how far one went one would never pass through ones mouth but would pass through ones anus potentially an infinite number of times.
Were two parties to proceed up the others Kyber they could be equally "so far up...."
A pretty decent metaphor for US politics.
NASA's latest risk assessment (September 2024) for keeping the ISS in operation beyond 2028 doesn't look pretty. https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/ig-24-020.pdf?emrc=67b9d4c2ce4da
Cracking and increasing air loss, lack of supply chain spare parts for 30 year old equipment, material degradation due to high energy particles, structural recertification work required as the current certification is about to expire etc.
On top of this the "Russian Orbital Segment" of the ISS handles Guidance, Navigation, and Control for the entire Station, but Russia has not yet committed to operations beyond 2028.
Are you kidding me ?
The actual government cares not about any law or government procedure or separation of powers. No republican in the House is doing his job concerned they might loose reelection due to Trump backing another candidate. They're spineless from top to bottom. Don't count on them to raise and take on the jobs they were elected for.
Yeah, $10bn for a SpaceX dildo-inspired Interplanetary Transport System to a Martian Elon-gated community 7/11 gas-station graveyard paradise is a small price to pay for the ensuing vastly improved peace of mind on Earth!
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