That's the top-rated comment at "SpaceX successfully catches returning Starship rocket/The uncrewed mission on Sunday was the company’s first successful attempt to 'catch' its Starship rocket as it lowered itself down to the launch pad" (WaPo)('A SpaceX Starship rocket successfully landed upright alongside a massive metal landing tower on Sunday as it was caught by two converging 'chopstick' arms — marking another historic engineering breakthrough for the company’s largest rocket").
Meanwhile, "peddling trash through his social media platform at X," Musks posts this:
And this:Starship rocket booster caught by tower pic.twitter.com/aOQmSkt6YE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 13, 2024
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 13, 2024
Posts
110 comments:
WooHoo!!! SpaceX rules!!
It's totally OK to own a media outlet if you are a Democrat. If you are not with the party line, not so much. I hope Musk pounds Democrats relentlessly and cleverly for decades to come.
Modern big government Democrats actually fit the definition of Fascist.
Maybe you should consider whether to take the recommendation of who should be the US President from the girl who plays guitar or the guy who sends rockets into space and catches them when they return.
Wow - achievement. Dems hate that.
He's fighting fascist politics, but it was wisely noted that when fascism comes to America, it will be branded by the fascists "anti-fascism."
The guy who posted that Tweet should maybe look into fascist policies on free speech. Hint: They were against it. The right to bear arms. hint: they were against it. The power of government over the people. Hint: Fascists never saw a government power that they didn't like.
But I guess that believing that it's Musk who is the fascist, and not Joe Biden, is just one more of the six impossible things that a "good American" is supposed to believe before breakfast.
""Maybe Musk’s time would be better spent doing concentrating on SpaceX and his other corporate interests instead of engaging in fascist politics and peddling trash through his social media platform at X!". "Maybe Musk’s time would be better spent doing concentrating on SpaceX and his other corporate interests instead of engaging in fascist politics and peddling trash through his social media platform at X!". That's the top-rated comment…"
He can do BOTH, loser. You?
HE DID IT! HE FREAKING DID IT!
This is why he doesn't have the time for some Newsweek article making up a story about Dark MAGA being Neo-Nazis.
The Modern Democrat Party collective behavior, demands, censorship and attitudes fit the definition of Fascism.
*comments disappearing again. *
Musk can land a rocket on the south lawn of the White House. Just sayin.
JSM
"Sunday as it was caught by two converging 'chopstick' "
When you can catch a fly with chopsticks, Grasshopper.
Wow. That's truly amazing.
Set an alarm and watched it live, even though I was dead tired. My wife ran into the room to see if I was ok when they caught the booster. WooHoo!!! I really was skeptical they were going to pull it off, but damn!
There is still a part of America that works. But it is shrinking.
Wow. I am no engineer, but wow.
Hell yeah! I set my alarm to watch it. The son of a bitch pulled it off!! I had tears watching it land and again when Ship nailed its target in the Indian Ocean an hour later. Screw the haters! Musk cares deeply about the US and humanity overall. He may be a bit of a kook, but he’s our kook, damn it!
Musk becomes a trillionaire no later than the day that SpaceX goes public.
Musk is a unique and fascinating actor on the world stage right now, but what goes most unremarked, is his ability to lead large multi-disciplinary teams and keep them focused on developing brilliant, practical innovations and putting them into practice, often being successful on the first effort.
And he does this in 3 distinctly different industries, 4 if you count 'X', which I view as his version of the basement playroom. I think the secret of his success is that he's smart enough to understand and provide input on the various technologies that drive his businesses. Compare Musk as a senior executive and CEO, to the counterparts at NASA and Boeing. Musk sleeps in his office when he thinks he needs to.
First time in history that a Hail Mary pass was caught, using a rocket.
Freder will be along in a moment to taunt, 'But he isn't on Mars yet'.
A lot of journalists should include that (oft used by the left) phrase "without evidence" and apply it to their own words.
Rocket comes in. Chop sticks grab it.
Everybody, "Wooo Hooo!"
Rocket is hanging up there.
Guy whose job is to wash it walks up with his bucket and rag.
"Neato. Now how do we get it down."
NYT commenters disappoint again
Ausgezeichnet!
Best innovation they can do is Ebonics.
"Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...
Modern big government Democrats actually fit the definition of Fascist."
Absolutely... The democrat party IS A party of fascists. That is true.
How sad that the first thing out of a democrat's mouth is about how to get more political power, 24/7, that is ALL they care about.
What an accomplishement by SpaceX and Elon, just staggering. I'll have to check out the internation news sites, because the democrat media will downplay it, just like they have removed North Carolina from the news feed.
The spirit of Equity produces the British National Health Service. The spirit of Freedom produces Space X.
G-Pub
in high school I worked at this place where we would try to do that with the wall phone..
I was first aware of "mechazilla" about 4 years ago. I thought he must be out of his ever-loving mind. Then he just says hold my beer and does it. Absolutely a stunning achievement. This is why China allows him to run Tesla without chinese investment, he's just that good.
He seems to be doing very well now. Democrats hate winners.
So for his next act, he will rescue stranded US astronauts from the space station. Wowsers.
Exactly. You cannot get more Fascist than Antifa.
He likes engineers more than accountants. Boeing most upset.
I'm old enough to remember when one of Hillary's campaign slogans was "Stronger Together". You know, like a bundle of sticks. I think there's even a Latin word for that.
Undoubtedly a tremendous innovator/entrepreneur. Reminds me of Edison and Ford, particularly the latter with his turn towards the far-right as he dabbled in politics and culture.
It's not new control, vision, or navigation systems, but his team have unified their operation, and produced something uncommonly functional.
What an absolutely horrific day for LLR-democraticals Rich & lonejustice, the ChiComs space program, gadfly, P-Inga, the New Soviet Democraticals, Dumb Lefty Mark, Field Marshall Freder, the russki's space program, mutaman, etc.
Not to worry though New Soviet Democraticals: its still a possibility your Electoral Cheat Machine + deep state corruption + Sovietized courts will install kamala and then you can lawfare Musk out of his businesses , imprison him, carve up his companies to give to your political allies and ensure the democratical's paymasters in Beijing get all the technology they want.
This is the America that no other country can compete with. Meritocracy unleashed. That's why the leftists want to destroy it through DEI bullshit and incompetent, platitude-mumbling candidates trying to impose mediocracy through force.
Musk becomes a trillionaire no later than the day that SpaceX goes public.
The other path to a trillion dollars comes once he launches his Google-killer and destroys search-engine censorship and pro-Democrat manipulation. Integrate it with best-in-show crypto that the government scum can't penetrate, and he'll be king of the world. Works for me!
It is notable that none of the usual sour-pusses have been by to school us that Musk is a failure.
This is what you can accomplish when you hire the best people and let them freely express their opinion.
Bich will be along later to claim the rocket burned up after being caught (there was a fire of some sort that was extinguished that I saw on the video.
And, yes, if he ever takes Space X public it will make him a trillionaire. I know I will be buying the stock and I am someone who didn't think Space X would ever successfully do the things they set out to do- what a marvelous thing for guy like me that grew up reading the hard science-fiction of the 1950s-1990s.
As for Musk's political detractors- this right here is how I think about them and their whining.
WaPOO's "top commenter" is too dim to know when he's been trolled.
That’s not just the first catch, but the first attempt to try. It is amazing. If he didn’t own X, I suspect the government would eventually shutdown SpaceX without a chance for Musk to argue for it. Musk was forced to do both to do the one he really wants to do. After all, too many said what SpaceX couldn’t be done and shouldn’t even be tried. I used to work with them at NASA.
It is notable that the usual sour-pusses have not been by to school us that Musk is a failure.
This is what you can accomplish when you hire the best people and let them express their opinion freely.
I’m about engineer. Wow!
Maybe the commentators’ time would be better spent enjoying the engineering triumphs of SpaceX instead of bitching that he does not engage in the fascist politics of the Democrats and uncritically swallowing the Democrsts’ trash talking points.
Meritocracy unleashed.
I like it!
The guy is a generational treasure.
I watched the launch live this morning. The catch brought tears to my eyes.
Musk and SpaceX have crushed the pretenses of uber-woke NASA that cannot even bring the thoroughly old-school SLS to operational status after 13 years and 32,000 million dollars. (Reforming that diseased agency will be a worthwhile project for Vance. It will be like Christ coming to cleanse the Temple.) And by creating a thing of sublime and resplendent beauty, Musk and SpaceX have also crushed and humiliated thousands of odious frauds and grifters, the soi-disant "artists" who can do nothing more splendiferous than gluing shellacked turds to a sheet of Gatorboard.
The Media-Educational Complex political scale consists of Very Liberal, Liberal, Slightly Liberal, and Right Wing, Bible Thumping, Gun Toting, Brownshirt Wearing, Klansman. A careful examination of those options will reveal a large range of views which are not believed to exist by the M-E C.
Elon's teams and their technology accomplishments exist "outside" of Mussolini's defined "state" control and thus, they will never stop until they destroy him, his achievements, and then assume control of what he has built to enrich their allies.
"For decades I suffered psychological pain because the most powerful flying object ever built was a decade in the past, two, three … half a CENTURY in the past … longer than from the Sopwith Camel to Saturn V, and now finally SpaceX has eased that pain. Thank you."
--David Deutsch, Physicist, Author of The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity
Come on, lefties. Would it kill you to say, "good work, Elon"?
"instead of engaging in fascist politics and peddling trash through his social media platform at X!"
Did that comment include a spittle-flying emoji? It would appear Elon is directly over the target.
"[There] was a fire of some sort that was extinguished that I saw on the video."
That was a normal and planned for burn-off of methalox retained in the "plumbing" of the Raptor 2 engines. The Raptor 3 won't need to burn off fuel.
Well perhaps it would be but another thing for certain in my mind that everybody's time would be better spent reading things besides the New York f****** Times. Outrage porn or confirmation bias take your pick but NYT ain't worth the money or the moments of one's life span to view it.
On a first try. That is incredible.
What's NASA up to these days? Have they got that "diversity" thing figured out yet?
So , an American entrepreneur and private enterprise doing what government entities have demonstrated they are incapable of doing today. So, of course, the usual ignorant liberal fascist twats self identify. People who don't even rise to the level of mediocrity. So, so true to form. Going forward these same turd creatures will dismiss every advancement and success Musk and SpaceX meet. All whilst being left behind .
One of the most incredible feats of science and engineering I have ever seen. Huge congratulations to SpaceX.
For context -- the whole rocket is larger and heavier than the Saturn V rocket used in the original moon landings. The booster that is caught is the length of an American football field or around the size of an Airbus A380. It’s gigantic.
Looking forwards to more of these launching as part of the Artemis moon program in the coming years.
“Replacing Joe Biden with Kamala Harris is like shitting your pants and changing your shirt.”
And the rocket looks less like a penis than the other guy's.
So, big win for Elon.
Just who do you think you are kidding?
You have jumped for absolute joy over every little issue you believed could be used to denigrate and belittle what SpaceX, and every Musk company, achieves.
You ARE the kamala of Althouse blog only at this moment you are smart enough to know that if you were to pull your usual schtick you would be laughed out of town.
But, they will vote for Kamala because Taylor Swift says so......right......
"and then assume control of what he has built to enrich their allies."
"while they loot and destroy it." You left out that part.
For the foreseeable future Space X is an absolute necessity for the US. Both commercial, military and spook uses can not reasonably be handled by Musk's non-competitive "competitors". Witness Boeing's failure to retrieve their own capsule with astronauts inside. Imagine no Star Link should we really need it in a shooting war (cue Ukraine). And that doesn't even include natural disasters....
Gee, suppose the Harris-Biden administration took 10% of the money for high speed internet and gave it to Musk. Bet there would be thousands upon thousands happily on-line now. Of course there would be hundreds on Federal-state-and local government employees NOT hired. There would be many, many NGO's weeping at what might have been. Not to mention consultants, designers, programmers and corporations turned away from that sweet, sweet Federal money trough.
Bottom line is if the feds did not NEED Musk the attacks on Space X (and all things Musk) would be even worse.
NASA can’t do even 10% of what SpaceX can do. At least that’s my sense. All the innovations are from SpaceX. That’s capitalism, baby!
NASA, the Gold Standard for Althouse lefties and LLR-democraticals, has just about figured out how many pronouns they should have along with new and exciting ways to continue funding Old, Failed, Legacy Space at levels higher than SpaceX as a reward for Legacy Space cost overruns, delays and performance failures.
But, no tweets in support of Trump!
Musk will be on Mars before NASA is on the moon.
"Bottom line is if the feds did not NEED Musk the attacks on Space X (and all things Musk) would be even worse."
SpaceX is what will keep Musk out of prison.
Modern big government Democrats actually fit the definition of Fascist.
FDR tried to install a Fascist state with the NRA, but was stymied by the Supreme Court, hence the threat of court packing. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? What Fascism and Communism have in common is a privileged bureaucracy, and we have that.
Yeah, but Biden has F-15s. Which raises a philosophical question, did the framers of the 2nd Amendment intend for civilians to own 233ft guided rockets.
I’m an engineer that contracted at NASA and wow.
That's rich considering this recent story:
"SpaceX’s plans to launch more rockets from the California coast were rejected by a state commission this week, with some officials citing Elon Musk’s political posts on X and raising concerns about the billionaire’s labor record at his companies.
The plan to increase the number of rocket blasts into space up to 50 a year was rejected by the California Coastal Commission on Thursday despite assurances from Space Force and Air Force officials that they would increase efforts to monitor the effects that rocket launches have on nearby wildlife."
"Among the issues raised were Musk’s decision to insert himself in the presidential race, his spreading of conspiracy theories, the labor record of his companies and derogatory comments he has made about the transgender community.
“We’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race,” commission Chair Caryl Hart said."
The California Coastal Commission is a group of unelected bureaucrats who rule the California coastline with an iron grip. They have the authority to make whatever rules they want to and local governments and organizations have no say in the issue. "The Commission is composed of twelve voting members, appointed equally (four each) by the Governor, the Senate Rules Committee, and the Speaker of the Assembly." (Who happen to all be Democrats)
The story comes from the L.A. Times, but it's behind a paywall. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-11/la-me-spacex-coastal-commission
Maybe all the academics, musical performers, actors, and old-line media should just stick to teaching actual knowledge, singing, producing films people actually wish to watch, and reporting basic news factually and without bias.
The indisputable fact is that what Musk is doing is of immeasurably greater value than all those others combined. Basically the whole sorry lot of them are three-year olds going vroom, Vroom, VROOM on a tricycle.
Deplorable. Yes, massa.
“We’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race,” commission Chair Caryl Hart said."
One might ask what this has to do with launching rockets.
I worry about Artemis 2 (which will carry 4 astronauts). The capsule has electrical problems which, instead of repairing they are doing a work-around because a full repair would require them to dismantle the capsule, which would take months.
"The Lockheed Martin assembly, test, and launch operations (ATLO) team at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is reinstalling some electronics and implementing workarounds for others affected by an electrical circuit flaw found in digital motor controllers on the spacecraft."
Even so, the launch schedule has slipped to Sept 2025, almost a decade late.
Original Mike, SpaceX may be what gets Musk out of prison. Drop a missile in the parking lot and tell them the next 6 will land on the guard towers and warden’s house unless Elon walks out the gate in 5 minutes.
JSM
If Trump wins. No bets on what Kamala and her handlers would do. They would be developing a non-fossil fueled rocket. Forever.
SpaceX IS the Artemis program....NASA and Legacy Space just arent in a place where they can admit it yet. That will take several years.
Well, Leland, the framers assumed private citizens would own warships - the WMD of the day - because the Constitution talks about letters of marque and reprisal.
JSM
This Engineering ranks right up there with the summer of 69’s moon landing. History being made and “You were there.”
Oh, and Artemis 1 had worrisome heat-shield issues.
Funny that lefties are out and about today; in the post immediately below this one, but won't touch this one.
Space X has reduced the cost of launching a kilo of material into outer space from $ 20,000 to less than $ 200. This is tremendous.
LLR-democratical Rich is the only one with enough gall to pretend his previous antics never happened.
Similar to P-Inga and her hilarious attempted whitewashing of almost 10 full years of lunatic leftist-cultist conspiracy mongering.
And was called literally impossible even a decade ago by the Old Space dudes in the US and Europe.
While Musk shows how it is done both on the rocket pad and on the podium the Democrat Fascist scream!!! For the Democrats actually fit the definition of Fascist.... they want free speech restricted and guns taken up from the citizens... and that, folks, are what Fascist do!!!
What a massive cope.
It all depends on whether or not SpaceX can replicate today's feat regularly (and safely).
The Starship and booster combination, in conjunction with at least four "Mechazillas" ("Mechazilla" is the nickname given to the tower that has been designed to support the combination at launch--and to serve as the "landing platform" for returning stages when they come back to Earth) will likely be needed to afford relatively inexpensive and regular access to Earth orbit for big and heavy payloads.
"Big" because Starship and its booster are both nine metres in diameter, which means that Starship can carry physically large payloads.
"Heavy" because SpaceX has suggested that the "production model" of the Starship and its booster may be able to send up as much as 200 metric tonnes into low Earth orbit (LEO).
"Relatively inexpensive" because, rather than throwing away multi-billion dollar vehicles after every flight, we can refurbish them for reflight. Given the robust design choices made by SpaceX (stainless steel body, instead of aluminium, etc.), the cost of refurbishment will hoped to be an order of magnitude (or more) lower than what we saw with the Space Shuttle (half-a-billion US dollars per refurbishment!).
SpaceX is also on the hook (by contract with NASA) to develop a probe that would land on other planetary bodies (the Moon first, then Mars later on). That probe is supposed to be a variant of the Starship and is supposed to be ready to carry humans to the Moon by 2026.
I doubt that many actually believe that this timeline will hold up, but that's what the (ambitious) NASA schedule suggests.
Wow!
Oh, wow!
My late father-in-law was the chief engineer for Douglas's production of the third stage of Saturn V. He passed before I married his daughter but she tells me he would have been amazed at the rocketry involved. Also, the Democratic party fits Mussolini's definition of fascism: 'All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.'
"It all depends on whether or not SpaceX can replicate today's feat regularly (and safely)."
Gee, thanks for that insight, Rich.
"SpaceX is also on the hook (by contract with NASA) to develop a probe that would land on other planetary bodies (the Moon first, then Mars later on). That probe is supposed to be a variant of the Starship and is supposed to be ready to carry humans to the Moon by 2026."
Are you arguing that SpaceX will hold NASA up?
VDH has an excellent column on Musk at victorhanson dot com
Musk for Secretary of Defense? In four years we'd have a military the Galactic Empire wouldn't mess with, let alone Putin, Xi, or the Mullahs.
Geez I suppose Space X would be doing a lot better if Elon was at it full time. But really it seems to be doing well enough. Frees Elon up for a little political rabble rousing--and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
""SpaceX is also on the hook (by contract with NASA) to develop a probe that would land on other planetary bodies (the Moon first, then Mars later on). That probe is supposed to be a variant of the Starship and is supposed to be ready to carry humans to the Moon by 2026."
Maybe SpaceX would actually reach this target (not that NASA will be ready) if the government would get out of the way. This flight was ready months ago, but couldn't launch because of the FAA.
What would you expect from WaPoo readers who wouldn't know fascism if it bit them in the ass?
Bingo!
I know at one remove a couple people who have worked for Musk. They say that he is very smart (though not as ultra-scary smart as Sergei Brinn, says one person who knows both) and is a little bit "on the [Asperger's / autism] spectrum." The latter works in his favor, as he seems to be pretty immune to charisma (which is the biggest talent of many--most?--upper-managers) so he isn't easily swayed by how smooth and convincing the person presenting an option is, and he does his homework so that he understands enough of the technical issues to judge between alternatives.
The negative side is that he is quick to fire people if the mistakes they make seem stupid to him, and he is VERY demanding of long hours and a very fast tempo of work, so talented people do leave when they want to have a more normal life. Really, SpaceX isn't that different from the Skunkworks at Lockheed back in the '60s (or the Apollo program, for that matter)--it only seems amazing in the matrix of the dumpster-fire that is the contemporary corporate (and academic, and governmental) world.
I'd expect nothing less repellent from someone who comments at WaPo. And Clyde, I have to disagree; most WaPo afficionados are well acquainted with fascism, practicing it on a regular basis. It's a shit paper with a shit customer base. Dies in darkness indeed.
"What a massive cope."
I think I just figured out what you're trying to say. Did you mean 'coup'?
"They would be developing a non-fossil fueled rocket."
Wind powered.
Cool
fascist politics
You mean like censoring those you hate?
No, that's the Left, not Musk
You mean like supporting the murder of Jews?
No, again, that's the Left, supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.
The left always projects their evils on everyone else.
Always
Just about 10 years ago all the "experts" had it all figured out...
https://x.com/Indian_Bronson/status/1845487254640222615?t=4-lOiPWRSjkbN0T5jb-mFw&s=19
Inane comments by NYT, WP, Atlantic, et al readers remind me how important it is that the Electoral College never be replaced by a national-level popular vote. Ignorant dunderheads in all of the large, Democratically controlled cities would determine the fate of everyone in the US.
“The goal is to flight these rockets multiple times a day.”
These are very stupid people
He hasnt even weaponized the rockets yet
Who does this goober think s/he is telling Musk how he should spend his time and energy?
I grew up (I was born in the mid-1940's) with the sure and certain hope that we humans would go into space, and land on the Moon, and aim further IN MY LIFETIME.
Heinlein's novel "The Man Who Sold The Moon" was published in the early '50's. It was about a capitalist who sponsored a moon shot when the Government wouldn't. And he went on the first moon shot and died (of a weak heart, as I recall).
I truly thought, when I was a teen-ager, that before I died I would have the option to travel to the Moon (as a tourist or immigrant), or even to Mars.
I'm now too old to visit another planet, but Musk creates hope that my grandchildren may have that option.
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