Amazing. Makes you wonder why anyone still wants to trust the government with anything - your mail, your health care, your actual health, your country's safety.....
The fact that most media outlets ignored or barely reported on this magnificent story tells you everything you need to know about the collapse of the journalism. Thank you, Max. And also, loved the title of this piece.
Awesome article! I draw immense satisfaction from the fact that naysayers have to pop a few Tums every time Musk is successful. They must buy them in bulk.
When I watch SpaceX flights and recoveries, I am as thrilled as I was that day we first walked on the moon (yes, I'm old). I look at all those young people behind their computers at launch control, doing things often unappreciated but truly historic and clearly important, and I feel once again that sense of pride and power that comes from doing really big, good things, in the United States of America.
It’s also a miracle that SpaceX replaced Russia as the taxi for our astronauts. Putin would have used the return of westerners trapped on the space station as leverage when Russia invaded Ukraine, which he proved capable of by threatening exactly that after the invasion. SpaceX saved us from being humiliated. And likely will have to save us from hapless Boeing next.
"No private company had ever successfully launched a rocket before." Not to take away from SpaceX's astounding success, but Orbital Sciences (later Orbital ATK, now part of Northrop Grumman) launched the first private rocket, the Pegasus, in 1990.
This article calls to mind the recent interview of Elon Musk by Don Lemon.
Lemon did his utmost to discredit Musk. Lemon was snide, arrogant, obsessed with wokeness and DEI. Musk was polite, patient, bemused. We watched as a hairless chihuahua nipped at the ankles of a colossus striding to open up a new epoch of human progress. Homo sapiens as multi-planetary species!
Like all celebrity journalists, Lemon deludes himself that he is the story. Lemon’s interview seeks to tease out an affront to Lemon’s precious blackness and gayness. What a failed opportunity to present meaningful information about his subject.
Thank you for writing this and to The Free Press for publishing it. The cognitive dissonance in watching the establishment media trash this history-making endeavor has been dizzying.
I am a space geek. My dad worked on Apollo in the sixties, so I was born to it. I have followed SpaceX from its early days - before the first launch attempt of the Falcon 1. What they have accomplished in the last twenty years is breathtaking. Starship will revolutionize spaceflight. Already, Falcon 9 has rocked the industry, turning yesterday's titans into also-rans. For a space geek it is thrilling to watch these launches and mark their progress.
Elon Musk is a singular individual. He is brilliant and driven. As a serially successful entrepreneur he has left industry-changing companies in his wake. But he can be impulsive and puerile. He offends people, especially when he happens to attack their sacred cows. For this he is subjected to the two minute hate every time his name appears in the press.
I myself find many things he says off-putting, and I certainly don't agree with many things he believes. But...I don't believe he's a fascist, or an antisemite, or a greedy robber baron. That's just part of the two minute hate. He seems sincerely motivated to achieve Great Things for the betterment of mankind - even if some people don't agree with his goals.
As a space geek, I hope I live long enough to see humans walk on Mars. If I do, I'm confident that Elon Musk will be largely to thank for that.
Great, well balanced post! Thanks for your comments on Musk's contributions to progress in aerospace technology. I haven't been following his launches very closely, so appreciate the little summary.
I admire Musk’s creative and entrepreneurial spirit and love the fact that he pursues these big ideas with mostly private capital.
Question for the group: why is colonization of Moon/Mars a desired outcome? In even the most far-fetched and draconian climate change scenarios, the earth will have infinitely more resources and be infinitely more hospitable to life than the most optimistic view of either moon or Mars.
Why not spend efforts and resources to make this planet thrive even in a “worst case” scenario? It seems like a much more logical use of human, capital, and natural resources.
wI temember the same argument being made against Apollo: the money would be better spent on Earth, to feed the starving children of India and China. Well, today China and India are our rivals in space. Everyone wants to get out there.
I have no issue exploring space for the sake of exploring… especially when it’s private capital doing it. I simply reject the justification that we will colonize another planet because it will be better than this one. On its face, that argument holds no rationale.
I'm old. I recall the same argument made during the Mercury program after Kennedy’s speech. At great cost, we tripled investments in K-12 education, to no effect. We destroyed slums, replacing them with high-rise slums, destroying black communities with the process. Without doubt, these and other policies were initiated with the best of intentions.
I prefer Musk's approach. If something doesn't work, find out why and stop doing it that way. I understand that education, slums, and other social issues are far more difficult and intractable than rockets. Nevertheless, repeating past policies without a decent grasp of why they haven't succeeded is a triumph of intention over achievement.
Setting aside the threat of humans destroying themselves, there are really no hospitable places within our current technological reach; that is, for supporting our particular form of evolution. Within the timescale of the Universe, Earth is quite fragile. 1,000 meter planet killer asteroids are somewhat difficult to track from Earth, due to our close proximity to the sun (from what I've read). It is believed that only 95% of this type of asteroid (potentially causing global devastation) has been located.
Mars has potential. A mission there would require and lead to new advancements, just as the original space programs did. Much of what we might develop for Mars will ultimately refine our approach for preserving resources on Earth.
In about 20 years, just returning to LEO (low Earth orbit) has led to the possibility of greater global communications (Starlink, and other projects), reusable rockets, expansion of scientific study, cheaper access to space, and soon returning to the moon.
And Musk has made space exploration exciting again, and much cheaper. Frankly, he is one of the greatest (if not the best) allocators of capital in history. His organizations are quite lean. They are collectively (and urgently) pursuing a world where our present resources provide abundance for all.
All this in hopes of making humanity thrive as an interplanetary species.
Because it's not an either-or, it's a both-and. Ultimately, the energy and material resources of the solar system dwarf what is available on Earth. Why restrict ourselves to one planet?
I've always wondered the same thing. If you can't build a utopia in the Sahara Desert, or on the ocean floor, Mars is really not an option either, is it?
I thought the "made it to space" link would be to the launch video not the NYTimes. Please link to the source, not crappy reporting of the event that we have to have a subscription for to see anyways.
Excellent, thank you!
Amazing. Makes you wonder why anyone still wants to trust the government with anything - your mail, your health care, your actual health, your country's safety.....
The fact that most media outlets ignored or barely reported on this magnificent story tells you everything you need to know about the collapse of the journalism. Thank you, Max. And also, loved the title of this piece.
Awesome article! I draw immense satisfaction from the fact that naysayers have to pop a few Tums every time Musk is successful. They must buy them in bulk.
When I watch SpaceX flights and recoveries, I am as thrilled as I was that day we first walked on the moon (yes, I'm old). I look at all those young people behind their computers at launch control, doing things often unappreciated but truly historic and clearly important, and I feel once again that sense of pride and power that comes from doing really big, good things, in the United States of America.
It’s also a miracle that SpaceX replaced Russia as the taxi for our astronauts. Putin would have used the return of westerners trapped on the space station as leverage when Russia invaded Ukraine, which he proved capable of by threatening exactly that after the invasion. SpaceX saved us from being humiliated. And likely will have to save us from hapless Boeing next.
"No private company had ever successfully launched a rocket before." Not to take away from SpaceX's astounding success, but Orbital Sciences (later Orbital ATK, now part of Northrop Grumman) launched the first private rocket, the Pegasus, in 1990.
This article calls to mind the recent interview of Elon Musk by Don Lemon.
Lemon did his utmost to discredit Musk. Lemon was snide, arrogant, obsessed with wokeness and DEI. Musk was polite, patient, bemused. We watched as a hairless chihuahua nipped at the ankles of a colossus striding to open up a new epoch of human progress. Homo sapiens as multi-planetary species!
Like all celebrity journalists, Lemon deludes himself that he is the story. Lemon’s interview seeks to tease out an affront to Lemon’s precious blackness and gayness. What a failed opportunity to present meaningful information about his subject.
Remember being a kid and waking up really early on the West Coast to watch the first Mercury launch.
Did so for the rest of the Mercury, all of Gemini, and all of Apollo. It was thrilling and fun.
Musk is the first to bring both of those qualities back to space and going where no man has gone before.
This reads like a speech.
Thank you for writing this and to The Free Press for publishing it. The cognitive dissonance in watching the establishment media trash this history-making endeavor has been dizzying.
I am a space geek. My dad worked on Apollo in the sixties, so I was born to it. I have followed SpaceX from its early days - before the first launch attempt of the Falcon 1. What they have accomplished in the last twenty years is breathtaking. Starship will revolutionize spaceflight. Already, Falcon 9 has rocked the industry, turning yesterday's titans into also-rans. For a space geek it is thrilling to watch these launches and mark their progress.
Elon Musk is a singular individual. He is brilliant and driven. As a serially successful entrepreneur he has left industry-changing companies in his wake. But he can be impulsive and puerile. He offends people, especially when he happens to attack their sacred cows. For this he is subjected to the two minute hate every time his name appears in the press.
I myself find many things he says off-putting, and I certainly don't agree with many things he believes. But...I don't believe he's a fascist, or an antisemite, or a greedy robber baron. That's just part of the two minute hate. He seems sincerely motivated to achieve Great Things for the betterment of mankind - even if some people don't agree with his goals.
As a space geek, I hope I live long enough to see humans walk on Mars. If I do, I'm confident that Elon Musk will be largely to thank for that.
Great, well balanced post! Thanks for your comments on Musk's contributions to progress in aerospace technology. I haven't been following his launches very closely, so appreciate the little summary.
What a great story. Thank you for celebrating this achievement.
Really, really nice to read an article that applauds technological achievements and those folks that make it happen, very refreshing. Thank you
I admire Musk’s creative and entrepreneurial spirit and love the fact that he pursues these big ideas with mostly private capital.
Question for the group: why is colonization of Moon/Mars a desired outcome? In even the most far-fetched and draconian climate change scenarios, the earth will have infinitely more resources and be infinitely more hospitable to life than the most optimistic view of either moon or Mars.
Why not spend efforts and resources to make this planet thrive even in a “worst case” scenario? It seems like a much more logical use of human, capital, and natural resources.
wI temember the same argument being made against Apollo: the money would be better spent on Earth, to feed the starving children of India and China. Well, today China and India are our rivals in space. Everyone wants to get out there.
I have no issue exploring space for the sake of exploring… especially when it’s private capital doing it. I simply reject the justification that we will colonize another planet because it will be better than this one. On its face, that argument holds no rationale.
I'm old. I recall the same argument made during the Mercury program after Kennedy’s speech. At great cost, we tripled investments in K-12 education, to no effect. We destroyed slums, replacing them with high-rise slums, destroying black communities with the process. Without doubt, these and other policies were initiated with the best of intentions.
I prefer Musk's approach. If something doesn't work, find out why and stop doing it that way. I understand that education, slums, and other social issues are far more difficult and intractable than rockets. Nevertheless, repeating past policies without a decent grasp of why they haven't succeeded is a triumph of intention over achievement.
Setting aside the threat of humans destroying themselves, there are really no hospitable places within our current technological reach; that is, for supporting our particular form of evolution. Within the timescale of the Universe, Earth is quite fragile. 1,000 meter planet killer asteroids are somewhat difficult to track from Earth, due to our close proximity to the sun (from what I've read). It is believed that only 95% of this type of asteroid (potentially causing global devastation) has been located.
Mars has potential. A mission there would require and lead to new advancements, just as the original space programs did. Much of what we might develop for Mars will ultimately refine our approach for preserving resources on Earth.
In about 20 years, just returning to LEO (low Earth orbit) has led to the possibility of greater global communications (Starlink, and other projects), reusable rockets, expansion of scientific study, cheaper access to space, and soon returning to the moon.
And Musk has made space exploration exciting again, and much cheaper. Frankly, he is one of the greatest (if not the best) allocators of capital in history. His organizations are quite lean. They are collectively (and urgently) pursuing a world where our present resources provide abundance for all.
All this in hopes of making humanity thrive as an interplanetary species.
Because it's not an either-or, it's a both-and. Ultimately, the energy and material resources of the solar system dwarf what is available on Earth. Why restrict ourselves to one planet?
I've always wondered the same thing. If you can't build a utopia in the Sahara Desert, or on the ocean floor, Mars is really not an option either, is it?
I thought the "made it to space" link would be to the launch video not the NYTimes. Please link to the source, not crappy reporting of the event that we have to have a subscription for to see anyways.