The Muskrat is the reason why I can't even feel good about anything SpaceX does. Every time they do something to propel space exploration forward, all I can think about is how he and his cronies are going to use it to privatize space for profits.
The alternative needed to be NASA, slow, methodical, maximum safety, maximum consideration, with patents benefiting society instead of a private class of shareholders who see it as just another gift in their portfolio.
Instead, we gave away the future to reckless profiteers, and starved the correct, societal scale project of growing beyond our world that could have provided a sense of common purpose and accomplishment as Mercury and Apollo did, which given we're at each other's throats would have been useful.
We won't get anywhere with people like Musk or any other avarice obsessed profiteer at the wheel, only heartbreak in trusting human lives to them as they cut corners and overpromise their capability.
Blame the Boomers on this one. They got the moon landing as kids and then thought the rest was boring so they cut funding once they made up a large part of Congress in the mid 80s.
FWIW spacex doesn't actually have a lot of patents for their ships. Patents mean making things public but hold society back for the duration of the patent.
SpaceX treats it's rocket stuff as trade secrets so countries like China that don't respect patents can't use it. However, if someone does figure it out on their own, SpaceX has no protections.
Every time they do something to propel space exploration forward. . .
Musk is trying to build the Dune future, not the Star Trek future
Honestly SpaceX is WAY overrated.
Yes, they have some good engineers, i dont doubt that, but:
They still haven't been able to replicate what NASA did way back in the 60s with a bunch of rulers, they still haven't gone beyond low earth orbit.
Their heavy rocket's best attempt got it empty into an unstable spinning Leo, and thanks to fucking musk it destroyed a launchpad, polluting kilometers around which I'm sure they cleaned up, right?
They're entire shtick was that they'd be super cheap and they're fucking expensive, even after everything they have done is basically funded by tax payers.
All that is steered by a lying narcissistic psychopath who now uses his crashing Twitter system to get a dictator elected. The guy is like trump, every second word out of his mouth is a lie. Seriously every project he coined was bullshit, every claim he made was bullshit, none of it happened. Hyperloop, anyone? It killed high speed rail, so yeeeeiii? Tesla's with rocket engines? Ballistic missiles to transport humans across the globe in 30 minutes? The boring company making tunnels 1000x cheaper? And SpaceX? We will be on Mars in ~~2016~~ ~~2018~~ ~~2020~~ ~~2022~~ ~~2024~~ 2026, for sure! They're still in Leo, which is the (relatively) easy part of getting humans to Mars....
ALL of it, bold lies.
So yeah, I honestly think that SpaceX is not really helping space exploration forward. I think it's 90% bloat aimed at getting as much money for musk as possible
They still haven’t been able to replicate what NASA did way back in the 60s with a bunch of rulers
A bunch of rulers and a LOT of money and industry, courtesy of tax dollars. It was basically a concerted national effort.
I'd say SpaceX is doing great given modern financial constraints for spaceflight.
Every time i hear about SpaceX, I wonder how much further along we'd be if we had proper taxes and gave the money to NASA/ESA. Even if the answer is "about the same" then at least they treat their engineers well.
And at least NASA is beholden to US citizens instead of shareholders and a sociopath billionaire.
They used fake robots at their latest event. They were secretly controller by humans. Tesla is a scam company.
I'll never buy one, and it's 66% because of him. The other 34% is the fact Tesla's are shit quality vehicles. Geico literally refuses to insure the cyber cuck. I didn't misspell that.
Friend ran afoul of the Tesla's Drive-By-Wire. She had her car on automatic drive and it was speeding towards the bumper of another vehicle. She slammed on the brakes, but because the system has to switch from automatic to manual, the brakes didn't engage for a critical second. So she ended up jamming her car into the rear end of the vehicle in front of her, and her system recorded the event as "human error", because she was at the wheel when the collision occurred.
Now she's out several grand in repairs that her insurance won't cover, because she failed to let Tesla's autodrive system take responsibility for the collusion by trying to prevent it.
Stories like this are what make me incredibly hesitant to buy a Tesla.
As someone who owns a Tesla, I can attest this isn't how the brakes work. We'd heard similar rumors to this effect and it was the first thing we tried on the test drive. The brakes are 100% functional 100% of the time, regardless of driving assist.
Even if "full self driving" (quotes intentional, that shit is not fully self driving) did cause an accident, the driver is perfectly capable of avoiding it by braking or taking over steering.
P.s. Fuck Elon Musk
I hate Tesla as much as the next guy but this sounds very odd.
It's hard to believe that it's possible to sell a car in 2024 that doesn't apply the brakes when you press your foot on the brakes.
Because it's probably bullshit. Elon Musk is a colossal problem, so people feel justified in whatever lies come to mind.
The Cybertruck has steer by wire BUT NOT BRAKE BY WIRE. No other Tesla has any such system. The brakes in all Teslas are traditional.
The question of who pays when you have an accident with autopilot has basically been settled in court: the normal rules of fault apply. If autopilot is at fault, then you're at fault. If you're in control, and you're at fault, then you're at fault.
The idea that an insurance company says, "Oh, we won't cover it because you deactivated autopilot" is outright silly. Ignore the autopilot thing for a second. What happens when you rear-end someone? Your insurance covers it based on your coverage, and your premiums probably go up significantly.
The driver was supposed to be in control, of a vehicle with traditional brakes, and hit a car. If they have coverage, it should be handled just as if autopilot weren't involved at all unless they can prove that Tesla is at fault.
Your friend lied to you.
I do want the best car. I am rejecting Tesla as an option mostly on that basis. But it also feels nice to avoid directly giving money to Trickle-Down Elmo.
Trickle-Down Elmo
Lol, that's a good one
Pretty much up until 2020 I was thinking about a Tesla for my first EV. In '22 the time came for a new car and I went with a different EV because Tesla's quality control has plummeted due to Elon's reckless leadership.
I never liked Teslas for their lack of things like physical volume knobs for the stereo. In my brutal dictatorship, being an executive, manager, engineer or shareholder at a company that manufactures vehicles that installs touch screens at stations for required crewmembers will be punishable by death by coal power plant. "You have to take your eyes off the road to change the radio station." Report to your new job working for the power company. As fuel. Get on the conveyor belt, you'll know when your shift starts.
That and because they have the build quality of a 1980s Yugo but the price tag of a brand new Jaguar.
I'd buy an XPeng or a BYD or the like.
Well, good for you. Personally I'm not buying an internet connected Chinese car. If a car has the option of spying on you, and potentially be used in a hybrid attack, I'd prefer to get a car from a western manufacturer. And not Tesla either, Musk is too unstable and seems to be influenced by the same powers that has Trump's ball in a vise.
My current car is an internet connected EV, but it sure isn't Chinese or a Tesla.
I wonder how much longer it will be until the board of directors of the various companies he's involved in start a serious revolt and push to get him out of the company?
It won't happen. Ever since he got ousted from one of his companies he's structured his companies carefully so he can never be ousted again.
I was considering Starlink
Not anymore
The company became popular because of the popularity of its founder, and will die alongside his reputation.
I'm no Tesla historian, but wasn't it already on the way up before Musk got involved?
It tends to be how he makes all his money, tbh. Spot a company on the rise, buy it, profit.
Twitter is an exception. He's bought that just for propaganda because he can't bear the idea of people not paying attention to him.
Very much so, that's why he got involved and bought his way onto the list of founders.
It’s quite telling that most of the Musk spam I get comes from this community.
I'd buy an XPeng or a BYD
Why? They are only marginally better than a Tesla. And the software of the dashboard is designed for Chinese people who like UX and UI that look like the Aliexpress or Taobao website. Really unintuitive. Not to mention the post sales service is about as bad as the post sales service on your Huawei phone. I’d rather buy a KIA.
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