https://arstechnica.com/features/2025/02/elon-musk-recommends-that-the-international-space-station-be-deorbited-asap/
In a remarkable statement Thursday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the International Space Station should be deorbited "as soon as possible."
Nice neutral journ*lism there.
Ars two years ago when Elon discussed going to Mars: "YES YES YES"
Ars when Elon suggests it now: "NO NO NO HITLER NO"
Let's see how the intelligent science lovers of Ars Technica have reacted to this:
Are you talking about the astronauts that definitely aren't stranded? https://rdrama.net/post/337811/ars-technica-are-so-mad-at
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I like how they keep suggesting he's doing it for money when he was being paid heavily to send rockets to ISS and would be the one that would be paid to lift it into higher orbit indefinitely
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ISS missions are peanuts compared to a lunar or mars mission. $62m a launch, he got $3b for two lunar HLS proving flights.
Given how r-slurred mars is as a settlement destination either Musk is r-slurred, he wants lots of gibs or both. Maybe the Saudi's are leaning on him to pay them back for the Twitter financing.
I expect Musk is going to find lots of "waste" and "fraud" in NASA related to the Lunar Gateway project too because he doesn't like it. NASA wanted to avoid the one shot Apollo problem by using mars to build infrastructure for outside LEO operations via the Lunar Gateway so we don't just land on mars and then do nothing for decades like with the moon. Musk has stated he opposes this because it reduces the funding to go to mars which delays it happening.
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what do !spacechads think about lunar gateway
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"If your business requires government gibs then it doesn't deserve to exist."
— Elon Musk
"Hey government, I want gibs for my business."
— Elon Musk
!neolibs
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Trans lives matter
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Space programs aren't gibs. Unless it goes to Boeing.
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Regardless of Musk's shenanigans, the Gateway program has been criticized by a lot of people on the space industry. A Lunar outpost on the surface makes more sense than an orbital one placed on a highly elliptical orbit.
The reason Gateway was conceived was to give the SLS something to do, and the HALO orbit is just because Orion can't access Low Lunar Orbit (unlike Apollo).
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Wait, why not? I hadn't heard of this restriction before.
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The Orion command module is very heavy, the ship simply can't carry enough fuel to access LLO and return in it's own.
Orion was originally part of the Constellation Program and the plan was for it to launch atop of an Ares I rocket, then Orion would dock with the Altair lunar module which itself was attached to the Ares V second stage and then it would be propelled to LLO.
The SLS changed everything, because of it Orion can only access NRHO (near rectilinear Halo orbit), which is where the Gateway station is supposed to be placed.
The Orion service module is also different from what was projected during the Constellation Program, to reduce costs it was designed and built by ESA and Airbus.
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man normies just can't comprehend how fricking terrible SLS is, I didn't realize it also fricked up the Gateway project to the point where it was functionally useless (what's even the point of putting something in an orbit like that?)
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Cancelling the Constellation Program was one of Obama's biggest frick ups, even if it was delayed and underfunded it was much better than the SLS. It was an architecturally simple and feasible return to the moon program (albeit quite expensive and required much more political support and funding to accomplish its goals).
The Obama administration original plan was to fund the Commercial Crew Program, which is good as it helped SpaceX to develop the dragon and the current Falcon 9, but because Constellation was axed CongressBIPOCs approved the SLS as a replacement just to keep the Shuttle workforce employed. Worth mentioning that before Artemis was announced the SLS had no objectives, just a vague "flyby to the moon" and "asteroid re-direct mission".
!spacechads
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We need to go to the moon because its the best place to harvest deuterium and helium-3 from the lunar soil in order to fuel fusion reactors.
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I think humans are currently inferior to plants, cockroaches, and bacteria, because if a giant meteor hit Earth humans would go extinct but these other life forms would continue to live on.
If humans got out to other planets and built life there that would finally make us superior to all other forms of life on the planet and that is what I want.
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wait what?
musk has been all about colonizing mars since long, long, LONG before he even thought of buying twitter lmao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_design_history#Mars_Colonial_Transporter
this shit is from 2012
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The sooner NASA start giving him more gibs the sooner he can pay off the Saudis.
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The Saudis are happy with Twitter...they value it at 100 billion IIRC
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The whole accusation that musk is doing stuff for money is wild to me. He's clearly not a money driven guy.
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the richest man in the world who could do anything but instead spends his time all day talking politics and space on twitter is motivated by money
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I believe He already got the contract to deorbit it under Biden. He just wants to do it sooner.
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