Trump Wants $1 Billion For Private-Sector-Led Mars Exploration 170
President Trump's 2026 budget proposes over $1 billion for Mars exploration through a new Commercial Mars Payload Services Program, while simultaneously slashing NASA's overall budget by 25%. Phys.Org reports: Under the proposal, NASA would award contracts to companies developing spacesuits, communications systems and a human-rated landing vehicle to foster exploration of the Red Planet. Trump's proposed $18.8 billion NASA budget would cut the agency's funding by about 25% from the year before, with big hits to its science portfolio. The fleshed-out request on Friday builds upon a condensed budget proposal released earlier this month.
"We must continue to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars," NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro wrote in a letter included in the request. "That means making strategic decisions -- including scaling back or discontinuing ineffective efforts." The new Mars scheme is modeled after NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program that has benefited Intuitive Machines LLC, Firefly Aerospace Inc. and Astrobotic Technology Inc., though it has achieved mixed results. According to the budget, the contract to land on Mars would build upon existing lander contracts. America's Next NASA Administrator Will Not Be Former SpaceX Astronaut Jared Isaacman
"We must continue to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars," NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro wrote in a letter included in the request. "That means making strategic decisions -- including scaling back or discontinuing ineffective efforts." The new Mars scheme is modeled after NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program that has benefited Intuitive Machines LLC, Firefly Aerospace Inc. and Astrobotic Technology Inc., though it has achieved mixed results. According to the budget, the contract to land on Mars would build upon existing lander contracts. America's Next NASA Administrator Will Not Be Former SpaceX Astronaut Jared Isaacman
I already know the ending (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I already know the ending (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, the perfect way for Musk to siphon public money into his pockets for decades to come. Even better - because it's "hard" and "nobody has done it before", the deadlines will be non-existent and the deliverables completely negotiable after the fact.
Enjoy your kleptocracy.
Re:I already know the ending (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Much like his endless Full Self-Driving promises to Tesla shareholders, Musk's promises of "Mars Real Soon" are vaporware, even moreso than the lunar lander services he's been paid for. This will be more wealth transfer, done at the expense of far more productive research and science.
Re:I already know the ending (Score:5, Interesting)
It was a space race when NASA was going to Mars, now it's looking almost certain that China will be the first to do a sample return mission, and at least 50/50 for them being the first to land humans there. Their sample return mission is scheduled to launch in 2028.
Their human Moon landing is targeting around 2030 as well. I'd say at the moment it is 50/50 if China or the US will be the first to land people there this century.
Does it matter? From a scientific perspective it's nice to have money spent on that kind of exploration and development, but a lot of it is just corporate welfare too. As someone in Europe I don't really care which of the two gets there first.
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It was a space race when NASA was going to Mars, now it's looking almost certain that China will be the first to do a sample return mission, and at least 50/50 for them being the first to land humans there. Their sample return mission is scheduled to launch in 2028.
Their human Moon landing is targeting around 2030 as well. I'd say at the moment it is 50/50 if China or the US will be the first to land people there this century.
Does it matter? From a scientific perspective it's nice to have money spent on that kind of exploration and development, but a lot of it is just corporate welfare too. As someone in Europe I don't really care which of the two gets there first.
I'd rather have a space race than warmongering. On or off planet.
And for those looking at the 60s thinking we can afford both, fuck you. We can't. Vietnam was pointless. As near every war is.
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And for those looking at the 60s thinking we can afford both, fuck you. We can't. Vietnam was pointless. As near every war is.
The private sector gets rich on both space races and wars, so they're quite happy to promote and participate in both sets of activities. But wars, like fires, seem much easier to start - and sometimes they break out spontaneously. Starting a space race requires effort and planning.
As for being able to afford a space race, I would argue that as a species we can't afford it. We're well on the way to rendering our planet marginally inhabitable by our kind, thereby potentially ending our civilization.
We can't a
Re:I already know the ending (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot more potential graft in war than in space, because you can claim a need for secrecy when you hide your spending. The US military never passes audits, even in peacetime. (Or what passes for it anyway, we're always bombing someone.)
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There is nothing about this that prevents warmongering.
Please explain how this administration's actions in the middle east are not warmongering. I'm pretty sure that some people have a few things to say about his wanting to turn Gaza into some modern-day Gomorrah.
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You do know that the entire point of the original space race was to establish the ability to nuke the other side, right?
Yes. And we've checked that box. To death, and then some. Hell, we're targeting the cockroaches with current stockpiles.
Needless to say I was hopeful a 21st Century space race would have loftier goals. Perhaps starting with cleaning up the starting line (orbit) so the guy named Kessler doesn't confirm the only place us advanced rednecks are racing to, is orbit. To turn left and crash.
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The initial point of rockets in space was to nuke the other side- for sure- but that was hardly a race.
The US had the capacity, and the Soviet Union did not- full stop.
By the time there was any kind of race, the soviets had caught up on capacity, and we were worried about prestige and throwing humans around the planet, and onto other planets.
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Landing on Mars is the easy part, getting back off is the hard one, even with the lower-than-Earth gravity. China has a bit of an advantage in that the Chinese government is willing to risk astronaut lives a lot more than the US.
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I think the hard part is surviving on Mars for any extended length of time without suffering severe radiation-induced illnesses. Heck, surviving even getting their and back has the same issue. We've basically never gone further than a week or so's round trip to the Moon, with only part of that outside of Earth's magnetic field. Now you're talking years (at least 2.5 years round trip), and while for no other reason than the sheer awesomeness of humans walking on Mars, there are vast technical and biological
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Heck, surviving even getting their and back has the same issue.
Bingo. It may be that the most humane thing to do is to send them with a gun and a single round.
Current plans for getting people there are pretty fucking batshit crazy, with the plan for getting them back being some serious clown shit, with a timeline that is entirely divorced from the reality of the ongoing equipment tests.
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On what do you base that claim? So far no Chinese astronauts have been killed or badly injured, and the same cannot be said for the US.
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To me, putting a human on Mars is just a waste of money.
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The FSD promises may have hit a hard barrier.
Musk claimed that cars with FSD 2.5 hardware would support FSD, then it became 3.0 hardware. This wasn't too bad because the 2.5 cars could be upgraded to 3.0.
Now it looks like real FSD will require HW 4.0 and there is no upgrade path from 3.0 to 4.0. I don't understand why there isn't already a class action, asking for thousands of dollars back. for owners of HW 3.0 cars who bought FSD.
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How do you know there is no upgrade path?
What he means is that Tesla is not offering an upgrade path.
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Correction. To siphon MORE public money into his pockets.
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Fortunately he's incompetent and has already run Tesla into the ground. The company is basically living off schizoid incels buying the stock. SpaceX's success is largely based on the fact that they keep Musk away from actual management, but with Tesla a smoking ruin he's going to push his way into that and mess it up too.
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Yep, the perfect way for Musk to siphon public money into his pockets for decades to come. Even better - because it's "hard" and "nobody has done it before", the deadlines will be non-existent and the deliverables completely negotiable after the fact.
Enjoy your kleptocracy.
Wow - an assertion that's supported by recent history, and which comes close to being an inevitable outcome, is downmodded as 'Troll'.
Moderation here is getting really, really bad.
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Yep, the perfect way for Musk to siphon public money into his pockets for decades to come. Even better - because it's "hard" and "nobody has done it before", the deadlines will be non-existent and the deliverables completely negotiable after the fact.
And all his Starships will have Full Autopilot within 1-3 years ... :-)
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Let me guess. SpaceX will provide all of this.
Well, considering that NASA is being cut out, it ain't about any science.
Maybe we can get Captain Katy Perry to lead the Mars missions?
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“a new NASA initiative called the Commercial Mars Payload Services Program
Of course it will be SpaceX (Score:2)
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At least SpaceX could make Katy Perry an "astronaut" in her own mind for that money. NASA would have blown it on the new logo design.
Damn, looks like great minds think alike, In my post above, I said she should be the captain of the first ship. Maybe even the science officer.
Re:SpaceX vs. NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the amount is (according to you) not significant to Musk, he should turn down any contracts here to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Something tells me he won't.
President Biden sent well over one-hundred billion of taxpayer money to the very country that hires dishonorably discharged cokeheads to serve on executive energy boards.
Coincidentally enough, that cokeheads name was also Biden.
Spare me the fucking 'conflict of interest' bullshit.
"Because I perceive this one example of a conflict of interest, this other conflict of interest is not important."
Is that really your position?
Maybe a better position would be "I think the everyone should be bound by conflict of interest legislation that is effective." or "I will not support anyone's conflict of interest actions."
BTW, didn't the Republican-led congressional inquiries into Biden wrongdoings in this area lead to nothing? When the political opponents can't find much to pin on somene, maybe there isn't much to find.
Re: SpaceX vs. NASA (Score:3)
Re: SpaceX vs. NASA (Score:5, Informative)
It's called projection,
or the "everyone thinks more or less like i do" syndrome,
or the "I need someone else to seem corrupt so my obvious corruption can be explained away as they all do it".
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BTW, didn't the Republican-led congressional inquiries into Biden wrongdoings in this area lead to nothing? When the political opponents can't find much to pin on somene, maybe there isn't much to find.
The best they could do was get him for not paying taxes and then lying on a federal firearms form (which any republican will tell you is a bullshit form to begin with). The second amendment makes no mention of drugs hindering firearm ownership. Oh and Marjorie Taylor Greene showed pictures of his dick to congress for one reason or another.
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I mean the tax charges seem legit, although he seems to have had the book thrown at him in a case that is arguably selective enforcement. As for the gun charges... I mean, technically legit too, but extremely extraordinary in the selective enforcement area. I mean, seriously, filling out federal forms for gun ownership will being a drug user? How many US gun owners are also drug users? Seriously, this is the United States we're talking about here. All of them? Probably not. Half of them? I would say really
Re:SpaceX vs. NASA (Score:5, Informative)
The money spent defending Ukraine has been a fucking bargain - a weakened Russia will be incredibly easy to defend against over the next decades.
Worrying less about them will be especially important as China steps up to be more of a threat.
The analysis is oblivious, but you're too busy pretending this is only a team sport, and facts don't matter.
Pathetic.
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The money spent defending Ukraine has been a fucking bargain - a weakened Russia will be incredibly easy to defend against over the next decades.
Quite an arrogant position to play from your fucking armchair as Grandfathers die on the front lines. You act as if Ukranian civilian-turned-shooter attrition is cheap and plentiful. Those are human lives, dick.
Pathetic.
Yes. It is. Thinking someone else's son lying dead on the front lines is worthless because "bargain" future discounts off a fight from a boogeyman who hasn't even dared to start anything other than a Cold-ass War with the US. Fuck your excuses to dismiss obvious corruption. Not a damn thing you
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I should have started my post with 'Among other things' to avoid giving an asshole a window to make assumptions. So:
a) Your assumptions are wrong.
b) You can fuck off with those assumptions.
c) You're an enthusiastic Trump supporter. Quit pretending you give a shit about corruption or about Ukraine.
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The money spent defending Ukraine has been a fucking bargain - a weakened Russia will be incredibly easy to defend against over the next decades.
Frankly, it seems like the money would have been a bargain even aside from weakening Russia if we go back to the original reason for this mess in the first place. That reason was nuclear non-proliferation. It is pretty easy to argue that this all happened because the US, Russia, and other powers pushed Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons and pledge not to acquire more in exchange for "security guarantees". It can be argued that the guarantees on paper did not obligate the US to do much, but it was always
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It can be argued that the guarantees on paper did not obligate the US to do much, but it was always well understood that Ukraine was supposed to be giving up its nuclear weapons because it would not need them because of the mighty protection of the the West and the US in particular.
I am in no way arguing that we should not support Ukraine, but it was folly to disarm without something a lot more like a guarantee of intervention.
Re:SpaceX vs. NASA (Score:5, Informative)
Errrr....not quite. There was no connection between Biden's son and the Ukraine government except in your Maggot mind. And stopping Russia from rolling over Ukraine and then casting eyes on the Baltics and the rest of the lost USSR empire is a good thing.
So spare me the faux "outrage" bullshit. How come you Maggots still get your dainty little panties in a twist over Biden? Show us on the doll where Biden touched you.
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Hunter Biden got a job in Ukraine so it's a conflict of interest for us to support those folks in a war for the survival of their country? Are you suggesting that the United States backing of Ukraine is entirely based on one job? Are you sure you're not the coke head here?
Both of our political parties were perfectly fine supporting Ukraine until Trump came in and started telling Republicans that Russia was the victim in all this.
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Did you really just post "but but but Hunter Biden! Burisma! Reeeeee!"
You do know that Biden would have sent those munitions regardless, yeah? Because Ukraine is an ally, and the Biden administration actually worked with and defended allies, unlike the current one that just pisses them all off?
Besides, if you want to talk about offspring of presidents grifting based on their father's station, maybe you should look into the literal BILLIONS of dollars given to Jared Kushner against all advice. Or Don Jr.
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Recently, their enemy is Russia, which put them in a convenient position for us to see them as the friend of our enemy.
You are otherwise correct that the implication that we're doing this because of the ex-President's son is pretty fucking laughable.
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President Biden sent well over one-hundred billion of taxpayer money to the very country
For a value of "one-hundred billion..." that includes slapping a price on old military junk that would otherwise cost money to be scrapped, not to mention tens of billions somehow spent in the US just to get that equipment to Ukraine. The simple fact is that a lot less money than you seem to think was actually given to Ukraine in the form of actual currency. This is all without going into the fact that this was all approved by Congress and serves various US interests.
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Certainly some US citizens have been detained by immigration agents. That includes some whose naturalization status is not 100% legally determined, but who almost certainly are citizens who have been detained for extended periods while under threat of deportation (such as a woman who has been in the US almost all her life and is the child of a US citizen soldier who served overseas and is therefore almost certainly actually a citizen). Then there are the various children, including that 10 year old girl who
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(spoiler alert, it was safe, but the only way to find out was to return the capsule).
I think the simple fact that it did not explode on re-entry is not enough to say that it was "safe". Consider Richard Feynman in the Rogers Commission report:
"...it was asserted, there was "a safety factor of three." This is a strange use of the engineer's term ,"safety factor." If a bridge is built to withstand a certain load without the beams permanently deforming, cracking, or breaking, it may be designed for the materials used to actually stand up under three times the load. This "safety factor" is to allow for uncertain excesses of load, or unknown extra loads, or weaknesses in the material that might have unexpected flaws, etc. If now the expected load comes on to the new bridge and a crack appears in a beam, this is a failure of the design. There was no safety factor at all; even though the bridge did not actually collapse because the crack went only one-third of the way through the beam. The O-rings of the Solid Rocket Boosters were not designed to erode. Erosion was a clue that something was wrong. Erosion was not something from which safety can be inferred.
On its return, the Starliner experienced multiple thruster failures and its guidance system went out at one point. There's only about a one in six (assuming a six chambered revolver but considering that a bullet could fail to fire and also that an unbalanced chamber with one bullet in it might affect the way that the chamber spins and comes to a stop
Sure (Score:2)
We should increase NASA funding though. Cutting that is stupid.
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If someone can really get to Mars for $1 billion, then give it to them. Even give them $10 billion, in case there are budget overruns. We should increase NASA funding though. Cutting that is stupid.
Yes. Spacex is not NASA, and they are doing separate missions. If we're cutting out science, what are we going there for? And no - it isn't happening for a billion. 10 billion is sketchy.
But the big question is - Is there ketamine on Mars?
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I doubt it can be done for even ten billion. I mean, sure, you can get a spaceship into orbit and point it out Mars. We've done that enough times now. But putting people in that ship and having them arrive at Mars without them being irradiated corpses, that's where the money will go. And then you've got to get them down and back up out of a non-unsubstantial gravity well, and again, get them back to Earth without them being irradiated corpses.
No way any of that can be done for ten billion. Ten billion is th
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The irradiation issue is just a matter of mass for shielding along with a combination of space weather prediction and a radiation "storm cellar" area for periods of increased radiation from the sun. Acute radiation poisoning is simply not likely to be an issue and total radiation can be kept within a reasonable lifetime dose without doing much more than increasing lifetime cancer risk fractionally. Radiation keeps getting played up as one of the major challenges, but it's really not a big deal compared to o
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But the big question is - Is there ketamine on Mars?
There will be if Elon goes there, for multiple obvious reasons.
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I remember in the mid-90s there was a proposal to get to Mars for $20B. If it can be done for $1B in today's money after 30 years of inflation, that's quite the value.
Somehow I think this $1B is the entrypoint to a whole lot of sunk cost fallacy driving some serious 10+ digit corporate welfare.
You could, you know... (Score:2, Interesting)
fund NASA to the tune of $1bn.
Of course, your South African Nazi friend wouldn't profit from that, which is your main concern really.
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Truly, small small people (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hilarious to think that these tiny fascists can't even live up to the old joke about Mussolini getting the trains to run on time. There's practically nothing they ever set out to do and successfully accomplish, whether it's the overt or covert goals, except for shutting things down. Anything that requires an organisation to do something, as opposed to stopping doing something, ends in failure.
They are so wildly inadequate, in every sense.
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I think that's mainly true, but not wholly. And they're not even massively effective at breaking things! They've broken lots, of course, because breaking is easier than fixing, but there's plenty of stuff they tried to break and failed. Taking 2tn of services out of the government is the most obvious example.
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There goal is more-or-less to destroy government. They don't want the trains to run on time, they don't want the trains to run at all.
They want to continually ask for funding to make the trains run on time, provided via taxpayer dollars, while never quite making the trains run on time, so that they can be justified in constantly asking for more funding to make the trains run on time. Fraud and waste are being screamed from the rooftops, while the biggest fraudsters in existence create the biggest amount of waste possible. It's all quite asinine, and I'm quite frankly flabbergasted that there's no way to stop it from continuing.
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They want to continually ask for funding to make the trains run on time, provided via taxpayer dollars, while never quite making the trains run on time, so that they can be justified in constantly asking for more funding to make the trains run on time.
Do you understand that making the trains run takes money constantly? So does making them continue to run on time take money constantly. Sort of how just buying you a meal doesn't feed you for life (unless you immediately die of course) but you constantly need to buy food or things to use to grow food.
Do you understand that constantly needing more funding to not actually make the trains run on time does no good for anyone other than those absconding with the funding?
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That is because they think they do not need cooperation. Do what they say or starve.
Jokes on them, you can't force a caged bird to sing.
Jokes on us, we will be forced to go through World War 3 because they do not believe other people really exist like they do.
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Jokes on us, we will be forced to go through World War 3 because they do not believe other people really exist like they do.
Oh, they believe other people exist. There needs to be other people to take advantage of. They simply see them as "lesser" people so that they don't need to feel guilt about what they're doing. There are people that matter, those above the million, or perhaps the billion mark on the asset scale, and those that don't matter, which is the vast majority of us. Those that don't matter are simply fodder for the money and data collection machines that those that matter control.
Democrats were the fascists (Score:2)
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From a brief google search, this would appear to be some sort of scrambled reference to a grant to Power Forward Communities which was an energy efficient housing initiative. Basically just another debunked Fox News frenzied hit piece.
Translation... (Score:5, Informative)
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Elon gets a billion dollar bonus from daddy. Got it ;-)
Oh, a certain amount will be funnelled direct to Trump... He's not doing this out of scientific curiosity.
Extremely Partisan Post Above (Score:2)
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Re:Translation... (Score:5, Informative)
Hell of a political stretch to see one billion as some kind of payoff from "daddy" when speaking about a man with hundreds of billions in wealth.
What are you smoking? Leon couldn't even come up with $44B for Twitter, he had to get Saudi money. Paper value of stocks doesn't equal money in meatspace. If he tries to spend hundreds of billions of dollars he will rapidly find the value of his stocks plummeting. Further, his valuation to date has been founded on money from government. Tesla would have been barely if at all profitable without subsidies. SpaceX would be much smaller (if it still existed at all) without government contracts.
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The first rule of being rich is getting other people to spend their money.
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The first rule of being rich is getting other people to spend their money.
There's no question that makes more sense than the alternative, and the house of Saud has the money to spend on maintaining their empire. It doesn't change the fact that Elno can't spend and therefore isn't functionally worth hundreds of billions.
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"there’s nothing like doing things with other people’s money." -- Donald Trump in response to accusations he used charitable donations for personal use.
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Government contracts are not themselves subsidies.
It depends on the reason for them.
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Government contracts are not themselves subsidies.
Not in and of themselves, no. We do know though, that NASA explicitly gave SpaceX a juicy contract to save it from bankruptcy to prop up the position of SpaceX in its private space program. That pretty much does fit the definition of a subsidy. It can be argued over it was beneficial or not. Despite Musk, SpaceX seems to generally give value for the money when compared to traditional contractors like Boeing. Subsidies are not automatically bad. There is no question though that Musk has been the beneficiary
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You're confusing "wealth" with "income". Musk has hundreds of millions in "wealth" in the form of ownership of companies like Tesla. Consider though, that Tesla is around number fifteen among car companies in terms of sales and profits, but number one in valuation by a far margin. You can say something like: "but they make solar panels, batteries, and robots too", except that so do other major car manufacturers like Toyota and Hyundai. Tesla is still valued far higher than those companies despite their high
A billion dollars? (Score:2)
To kill some astronauts?
Couldn't we just shoot 'em instead and be done with it?
Srsly, this is an untenable version of space travel. It's not the frigging Mayflower. If the radiation on the way doesn't kill them, the landing process in the skimpy atmosphere likely will. And there's the not small matter of getting them back.
This is a Musk wet dream right out of the movies, and all the positive thinking in the solar system isn't going to make it sensible.
PLUS, we've spent $93 Billion on Artemis and still no ci
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PLUS, we've spent $93 Billion on Artemis and still no cigar. Is Mars gonna be that much cheaper?
It takes talent to repackage 1970s shuttle technology and take so long and blow through so much money making the Senate Launch System. Too bad it was wasted turning the SLS into a pork barrel boondoggle.
Now there's how to get taxpayers happy about funding that boondoggle. Rename it and re-function it to the Senate Launch System. Upon completion, the entire Senate is launched into space, never to return. Hell, I'd throw an extra thousand at my taxes every year so long as they provided a way to earmark it specifically for that project.
One Billion Dollars!!! (Score:2)
If you aren't saying that in a Dr. Evil voice, you are seriously missing out.
The orbiters on the STS program cost 10 billion to make in 1981 dollars. That would be about $50 billion today. Now, I know that Elon is doing what he can do to drive that cost down, but there is only so much you can do. We are comparing a reusable rocket vehicle that made it to LEO vs one that is going to Mars.
Granted, Elon gets billions from government contracts. I don't think this extra billion is going to do much if he can'
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"I don't think this extra billion is going to do much if he can't deliver HLS"
Elon not deliver on a technology he promised?! That would be crazy.
Waste of a huge amount of money (Score:2)
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The waste of money is shameful why explore another planet when we should be using the money and resources making this planet better, earth is our only home so it deserves the investment
If all humanity had this mindset we'd still be living in trees.
There will *always* be problems here. The cool thing about there being 8+ billion of us is that we can work on more than one thing at a time.
You want to complain about "waste of money"? How about we stop funneling all the money into the hoards of a few billionaires first?
Was this what it was like under Ulysses S. Grant? (Score:2)
Elon wants the government to seize spectrum from companies that paid to use it first to give to his company.
Elon got to destroy USAID, and hamstring several other agencies, that were investigating various companies he leads. Those investigations ranged from basic overcharging, possible aid of an adversarial foreign power, to blocking safety inspectors.
He's gotten a sweetheart bonus to his HLS contract, despite missin
Taxpayer dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
Says the man who is spending tens of millions on a vanity parade.
But, But, the DEFECIT! (Score:2)
OH! THE DEFECIT! we have a deficit we can't afford this stuff, if we don't slash spending were all doomed!
Haven't you heard? we have a deficit! We have to slash medicare and heating assistance! There a deficit you know!
It will destroy us all!
We can't afford to feed hungry children, there's a deficit don't you know!
We can't give tax breaks to billionaires, oh wait that one doesn't count, never mind.
But we have a Deficit! we need to cancel Supplementary food assistance for the poor.
Sorry poors, there's a Defi
Do you think that we could crowdfund ... (Score:2)
a few tickets for one way seats for Trump and some of his cronies; make the world a better place.
Call me skeptical, (Score:2)
But starship after nine missions has yet to complete a single orbit of the Earth. They then have to perfect unmanned on orbit fuel, transfers, etc., etc. Musk seems to be good at taking existing established technologies, branding them and scaling them up, not so much on the new things. Which really points to sending robots instead of humans. If he wants a vanity project, let him fund it himself.
Industry-standard performance (Score:2)
If the US Government gives Elon a billion dollars to go to Mars, his company will get to Mars with the same cost-efficiency and effectiveness that other aerospace companies have achieved on other NASA contracts, such as the gaggle of companies delivering the Space Launch System.
One way trip, Don & Elon (Score:2)
Put Trump and Elon on it, make it one way, and I'll donate now!
Private/public (Score:2)
Could you be any less obvious (Score:2)
Ok, fine (Score:2)
But every bit of research that is funded by this should be made open source and not patent-able.
Elon Musk wants NASA to fund $1B Mars Exploration (Score:2)
What a crock of shit. I'm tired of being exploited by billionaires. He can pay for it himself.
Why? (Score:2)
Combo deal... (Score:2)
I assume that this is combination of a hush payment and forward looking bribe to Elon Musk. The hush payment for keeping quiet about DOGE and the bribe to control content on X for future elections.
Now to be suspended for at least 90 days (Score:2)
So what... (Score:2)
That will cover like three Starships falling out of the sky?
Re:Trump just killed an airliner in dc (Score:5, Insightful)
Blaming Democrats for supporting the latest Republican scapegoat minorities again huh? Are you sure you arent projecting your own bigotry onto your analysis of the situation?
Young men have been dehumanized almost since birth and been told they are unneeded and the cause of all problems. Older men, especially of a particular skin tone, are told they are sexist and racist - Ironically a textbook example of sexism and racism
Ah, the conservative mantra of victimhood. Funny how I don't feel put upon isn't it? But sure, you're a victim.
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Young men have been dehumanized almost since birth and been told they are unneeded and the cause of all problems. Older men, especially of a particular skin tone, are told they are sexist and racist - Ironically a textbook example of sexism and racism.
Finally, they reject science and biology in a move that make anti-vaxxers look mild.
If you could cite some sources here that would be fantastic. Or perhaps you're having ChatGPT like hallucinations?
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Oh I'm certain he has a handful of anecdotes to back up his claim of male victimhood.
It's like when conservatives made feminism a bad word. They pointed to a small handful of extremists and said what they were saying is what feminism is and now most women are afraid to call themselves feminists even though all it actually means is belief in the common equity of women.
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NASA generates a profit. https://www.nasa.gov/wp-conten... [nasa.gov] Corporate welfare does not.