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Spacex

CO. Hoosier

Hall of Famer
Aug 29, 2001
45,309
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The biggest long term story this spring should be the United States' return to manned space flight in rockets designed and built in America. The Falcon 9 Rocket and the Dragon space capsule are truly USA products. This time, we didn't rely on German rocket scientists to send us into space.*

But, there is systemic problem here. None of the primary rocket scientist all-stars who are responsible for the Falcon rocket and Dragon Space capsule are black. The problem is magnified when we realize that millions of black kids are under educated, not educated at all, or are trapped in the school to prison pipeline. Understanding that one of the premier brain surgeons in the world started as a black kid in the Detroit slums, a future chess world champion might be a black refugee who became homeless in NYC, and three black ladies played an important and vital role in calculating launch and orbital mechanics in the early days of NASA, we quickly realize that a tremendous amount of brain power and talent is wasting away in menial jobs, on the streets, on drugs, or in prison in the United States. I'm talking specifically about blacks here.

The solution to this problem cannot be found in yacking about "systematic racism". Nor can a solution be found in destroying confederate statues, changing the name of army bases, reforming cops, or having white people apologize for white privilege. The solution definitely won't be found in attitudes like if you don't do this or that, you "ain't black".

The national civil rights efforts, the war on poverty, and affirmative action, bussing,
and deliberate diversity and inclusion efforts have been with us for more than a half-century. If those things worked, we would see results now. They don't work. Our rocket scientists are still white.

I'm no way near smart enough to have all the answers to this problem except to note that the problem is systemic and the approach we have been taking for 50 years isn't working. Racism exists, and it will probably always exist. Laying off this social deficiency on things like "systemic racism" is a chickenshit and intellectually lazy way to look at the problem even if such phrases like "systemic racism" presented a way forward to solve the problems.

I suspect that the solutions need to start with attitudinal changes by all of us, not just the whites. Our white collective guilt, or even self-loathing for being white, tends to cause whites to view blacks as riding the short bus to school. Blacks have drummed into their psyche that they are repressed by circumstances beyond their control and react by wanting to destroy and rebuild "the system" what ever "the system" is. Well, "the system" gives us a great standard of living and enormous technology and accomplishments, like Spacex. We don't need to destroy the system. We need to figure out how to move all of us into a position to participate in the system.

Not all of us can be rocket scientists, brain surgeons, chess champions, or NASA mathematicians, but all us should have the opportunity become or do those things. I don t think the meaningful way forward is to destroy statues and change place names. In fact dwelling on the past is counterproductive. Ellon Musk is by no means an even tempered or easy person to work for. He had a child die of SIDS. He said this about grieving:

I'm not sure why I'd want to talk about extremely sad events. It does no good for the future. If you've got other kids and obligations, then wallowing in sadness does no good for anyone around you."
Similarly with the United States. We seem now pre-occupied in wallowing in our past--our sad past. A past that nobody alive now participated in. Yet the past lives on and on and on through our collective mind. That constructed memory really serves no purpose. This is why I am strongly in favor of making Juneteenth a national holiday. We should celebrate and remember the end of slavery. There is no useful purpose in belaboring and remembering the existence of slavery. The way forward is forward, probably with better and more meaningful educations. The way forward does not include circling back a couple of hundred years. Better education means more standards, not fewer standards. The way forward means higher expectations, not the bigotry of low expectations and personal behavioral leniency. Better education does not mean changing names like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson on public schools.

None of us should be seen as the a victim or a perpetrator. As we so often hear these days "we are in this together".

--end of rant--

*Elon Musk was born in South Africa. While a talented engineer and entrepreneur in his own right, the engineers he hired at Spacex to design and build the rockets were American.
 
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Shorter CO. Hoosier: SpaceX happened entirely without black people. Therefore black people need to get over it. Sincerely, a white guy.
 
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For people who are actually interested in what's happening in space, here is a schedule of events from NASA. Among other things, there's a space walk coming up in a week. The actual Falcon launch was awesome.

As I watch the space walks, it's striking how cumbersome and labored everything is. The astronauts have to be tethered, and they also have to work through various other cords and stuff, and the lack of easy anchor points make every maneuver difficult. There's lots of fumbling and struggling, even by highly skilled people who are brave as f#ck.

Back when I was scuba diving, I loved the feeling of weightlessness, particularly when we were diving alongside underwater cliffs, where the bottom was at least hundreds of feet below. It felt like flying. But for the astronauts, it's visually obvious that "the bottom" is home. And it's 250 miles away. And they need a freaking spaceship to get back there. Dazzling.
 
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The biggest long term story this spring should be the United States' return to manned space flight in rockets designed and built in America. The Falcon 9 Rocket and the Dragon space capsule are truly USA products. This time, we didn't rely on German rocket scientists to send us into space.*

But, there is systemic problem here. None of the primary rocket scientist all-stars who are responsible for the Falcon rocket and Dragon Space capsule are black. The problem is magnified when we realize that millions of black kids are under educated, not educated at all, or are trapped in the school to prison pipeline. Understanding that one of the premier brain surgeons in the world started as a black kid in the Detroit slums, a future chess world champion might be a black refugee who became homeless in NYC, and three black ladies played an important and vital role in calculating launch and orbital mechanics in the early days of NASA, we quickly realize that a tremendous amount of brain power and talent is wasting away in menial jobs, on the streets, on drugs, or in prison in the United States. I'm talking specifically about blacks here.

The solution to this problem cannot be found in yacking about "systematic racism". Nor can a solution be found in destroying confederate statues, changing the name of army bases, reforming cops, or having white people apologize for white privilege. The solution definitely won't be found in attitudes like if you don't do this or that, you "ain't black".

The national civil rights efforts, the war on poverty, and affirmative action, bussing,
and deliberate diversity and inclusion efforts have been with us for more than a half-century. If those things worked, we would see results now. They don't work. Our rocket scientists are still white.

I'm no way near smart enough to have all the answers to this problem except to note that the problem is systemic and the approach we have been taking for 50 years isn't working. Racism exists, and it will probably always exist. Laying off this social deficiency on things like "systemic racism" is a chickenshit and intellectually lazy way to look at the problem even if such phrases like "systemic racism" presented a way forward to solve the problems.

I suspect that the solutions need to start with attitudinal changes by all of us, not just the whites. Our white collective guilt, or even self-loathing for being white, tends to cause whites to view blacks as riding the short bus to school. Blacks have drummed into their psyche that they are repressed by circumstances beyond their control and react by wanting to destroy and rebuild "the system" what ever "the system" is. Well, "the system" gives us a great standard of living and enormous technology and accomplishments, like Spacex. We don't need to destroy the system. We need to figure out how to move all of us into a position to participate in the system.

Not all of us can be rocket scientists, brain surgeons, chess champions, or NASA mathematicians, but all us should have the opportunity become or do those things. I don t think the meaningful way forward is to destroy statues and change place names. In fact dwelling on the past is counterproductive. Ellon Musk is by no means an even tempered or easy person to work for. He had a child die of SIDS. He said this about grieving:

I'm not sure why I'd want to talk about extremely sad events. It does no good for the future. If you've got other kids and obligations, then wallowing in sadness does no good for anyone around you."
Similarly with the United States. We seem now pre-occupied in wallowing in our past--our sad past. A past that nobody alive now participated in. Yet the past lives on and on and on through our collective mind. That constructed memory really serves no purpose. This is why I am strongly in favor of making Juneteenth a national holiday. We should celebrate and remember the end of slavery. There is no useful purpose in belaboring and remembering the existence of slavery. The way forward is forward, probably with better and more meaningful educations. The way forward does not include circling back a couple of hundred years. Better education means more standards, not fewer standards. The way forward means higher expectations, not the bigotry of low expectations and personal behavioral leniency. Better education does not mean changing names like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson on public schools.

None of us should be seen as the a victim or a perpetrator. As we so often hear these days "we are in this together".

--end of rant--

*Elon Musk was born in South Africa. While a talented engineer and entrepreneur in his own right, the engineers he hired at Spacex to design and build the rockets were American.

I'd love to see us put an astronaut or two on Mars before I leave this earthly firmament. (I'd like to see a 6th banner in Assembly Hall, as well, but first things first . . .)

The scientific advances alone are worth the effort and expense. Humans are seekers and interstellar travel is our future. We lost our mojo, somehow, after Apollo and the Shuttle program. Let's get our shit together and reach and stretch again.
 
I'd love to see us put an astronaut or two on Mars before I leave this earthly firmament. (I'd like to see a 6th banner in Assembly Hall, as well, but first things first . . .)

The scientific advances alone are worth the effort and expense. Humans are seekers and interstellar travel is our future. We lost our mojo, somehow, after Apollo and the Shuttle program. Let's get our shit together and reach and stretch again.

The evolution of a space ship. What will it look like for a mars mission?

0vzc4v63vl251.jpg
 
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The biggest long term story this spring should be the United States' return to manned space flight in rockets designed and built in America. The Falcon 9 Rocket and the Dragon space capsule are truly USA products. This time, we didn't rely on German rocket scientists to send us into space.*

But, there is systemic problem here. None of the primary rocket scientist all-stars who are responsible for the Falcon rocket and Dragon Space capsule are black. The problem is magnified when we realize that millions of black kids are under educated, not educated at all, or are trapped in the school to prison pipeline. Understanding that one of the premier brain surgeons in the world started as a black kid in the Detroit slums, a future chess world champion might be a black refugee who became homeless in NYC, and three black ladies played an important and vital role in calculating launch and orbital mechanics in the early days of NASA, we quickly realize that a tremendous amount of brain power and talent is wasting away in menial jobs, on the streets, on drugs, or in prison in the United States. I'm talking specifically about blacks here.

The solution to this problem cannot be found in yacking about "systematic racism". Nor can a solution be found in destroying confederate statues, changing the name of army bases, reforming cops, or having white people apologize for white privilege. The solution definitely won't be found in attitudes like if you don't do this or that, you "ain't black".

The national civil rights efforts, the war on poverty, and affirmative action, bussing,
and deliberate diversity and inclusion efforts have been with us for more than a half-century. If those things worked, we would see results now. They don't work. Our rocket scientists are still white.

I'm no way near smart enough to have all the answers to this problem except to note that the problem is systemic and the approach we have been taking for 50 years isn't working. Racism exists, and it will probably always exist. Laying off this social deficiency on things like "systemic racism" is a chickenshit and intellectually lazy way to look at the problem even if such phrases like "systemic racism" presented a way forward to solve the problems.

I suspect that the solutions need to start with attitudinal changes by all of us, not just the whites. Our white collective guilt, or even self-loathing for being white, tends to cause whites to view blacks as riding the short bus to school. Blacks have drummed into their psyche that they are repressed by circumstances beyond their control and react by wanting to destroy and rebuild "the system" what ever "the system" is. Well, "the system" gives us a great standard of living and enormous technology and accomplishments, like Spacex. We don't need to destroy the system. We need to figure out how to move all of us into a position to participate in the system.

Not all of us can be rocket scientists, brain surgeons, chess champions, or NASA mathematicians, but all us should have the opportunity become or do those things. I don t think the meaningful way forward is to destroy statues and change place names. In fact dwelling on the past is counterproductive. Ellon Musk is by no means an even tempered or easy person to work for. He had a child die of SIDS. He said this about grieving:

I'm not sure why I'd want to talk about extremely sad events. It does no good for the future. If you've got other kids and obligations, then wallowing in sadness does no good for anyone around you."
Similarly with the United States. We seem now pre-occupied in wallowing in our past--our sad past. A past that nobody alive now participated in. Yet the past lives on and on and on through our collective mind. That constructed memory really serves no purpose. This is why I am strongly in favor of making Juneteenth a national holiday. We should celebrate and remember the end of slavery. There is no useful purpose in belaboring and remembering the existence of slavery. The way forward is forward, probably with better and more meaningful educations. The way forward does not include circling back a couple of hundred years. Better education means more standards, not fewer standards. The way forward means higher expectations, not the bigotry of low expectations and personal behavioral leniency. Better education does not mean changing names like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson on public schools.

None of us should be seen as the a victim or a perpetrator. As we so often hear these days "we are in this together".

--end of rant--

*Elon Musk was born in South Africa. While a talented engineer and entrepreneur in his own right, the engineers he hired at Spacex to design and build the rockets were American.
I acknowledge and agree with the spirit of your post. I don't disagree. It's time to move forward. I don't discount the efforts to correct the naming of military bases to something other than a veneration of a racist character in the past, or pulling down monuments to racists. Those reactions to this movement are important and therapeutic. But as you say, we need to look forward. We need to find ways to make opportunity in this country attractive, and equal, to all races. We need to figure out how to inspire those within the Black community, and all ethnic groups, to aspire to achieve all they are able to according to their personal ability and aspirations, without fear or prejudice.

I think in this moment, there is nothing wrong with taking some time to consider what is wrong with memorializing the characters from the Confederacy for whom we constructed monuments to, and making an effort to remove those memorials. They served the purpose they were intended to at that time, as wrong or misguided as those purposes may have been. But they don't serve us now. Pull them down. But beyond that, it's time to make things right for the way forward. Let's focus on doing what we need to do to make all citizens of the US participants in all the fruits this great country offers. Let's remove barriers oppressed members of our society face as they hope to build a better future for themselves. I hope we can transition this movement into real progress toward a way forward for all Americans.
 
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I'd love to see us put an astronaut or two on Mars before I leave this earthly firmament. (I'd like to see a 6th banner in Assembly Hall, as well, but first things first . . .)

The scientific advances alone are worth the effort and expense. Humans are seekers and interstellar travel is our future. We lost our mojo, somehow, after Apollo and the Shuttle program. Let's get our shit together and reach and stretch again.

Mars is more likely I fear
 
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Two days ago Spacex using a Falcon 9 rocket blasted into orbit part of the nextgen GPS satellite system. The first stage, with its 9 Merlin engines, returned to earth landing on a barge 300 miles east of Cape Canaveral.

This is cool stuff.



I'm old enough to remember when space was cool, kids wanted to be rocket scientists, engineers, and more. They were excited to be a part of an exciting future.

Now many of us are focused on a past, a past that contains the best, and the worst, of human endeavors. Perhaps millions of kids are now looking up at Mt Rushmore as an explanation for their unsatisfactory lives. Meanwhile millions of other kids are looking up at the sky and seeing infinite possibilities for an exciting life.

We are watching two Americas being constructed before our eyes. One America teaches kids to look back and tear down what is bad. Another America looks forward to building more rockets, creating more ways to make energy, advancing the human fight against killer microbes and more.

Some argue that much of what we have now rests on our history of slavery and human exploitation. The New York Times and its 1619 project advances that idea and it is being picked up in public education. It's no small irony, that whatever that history has contributed to today's life, that those who focus on that history want no part of it and want to burn it down. Our science, technology, and more has built a standard of living and opportunity for all of us. Sadly only some of today's youngsters will use all of that to go on to greater things. The rest will find more and more reasons to find fault.

Two Americas.
 
The biggest long term story this spring should be the United States' return to manned space flight in rockets designed and built in America. The Falcon 9 Rocket and the Dragon space capsule are truly USA products. This time, we didn't rely on German rocket scientists to send us into space.*

But, there is systemic problem here. None of the primary rocket scientist all-stars who are responsible for the Falcon rocket and Dragon Space capsule are black. The problem is magnified when we realize that millions of black kids are under educated, not educated at all, or are trapped in the school to prison pipeline. Understanding that one of the premier brain surgeons in the world started as a black kid in the Detroit slums, a future chess world champion might be a black refugee who became homeless in NYC, and three black ladies played an important and vital role in calculating launch and orbital mechanics in the early days of NASA, we quickly realize that a tremendous amount of brain power and talent is wasting away in menial jobs, on the streets, on drugs, or in prison in the United States. I'm talking specifically about blacks here.

The solution to this problem cannot be found in yacking about "systematic racism". Nor can a solution be found in destroying confederate statues, changing the name of army bases, reforming cops, or having white people apologize for white privilege. The solution definitely won't be found in attitudes like if you don't do this or that, you "ain't black".

The national civil rights efforts, the war on poverty, and affirmative action, bussing,
and deliberate diversity and inclusion efforts have been with us for more than a half-century. If those things worked, we would see results now. They don't work. Our rocket scientists are still white.

I'm no way near smart enough to have all the answers to this problem except to note that the problem is systemic and the approach we have been taking for 50 years isn't working. Racism exists, and it will probably always exist. Laying off this social deficiency on things like "systemic racism" is a chickenshit and intellectually lazy way to look at the problem even if such phrases like "systemic racism" presented a way forward to solve the problems.

I suspect that the solutions need to start with attitudinal changes by all of us, not just the whites. Our white collective guilt, or even self-loathing for being white, tends to cause whites to view blacks as riding the short bus to school. Blacks have drummed into their psyche that they are repressed by circumstances beyond their control and react by wanting to destroy and rebuild "the system" what ever "the system" is. Well, "the system" gives us a great standard of living and enormous technology and accomplishments, like Spacex. We don't need to destroy the system. We need to figure out how to move all of us into a position to participate in the system.

Not all of us can be rocket scientists, brain surgeons, chess champions, or NASA mathematicians, but all us should have the opportunity become or do those things. I don t think the meaningful way forward is to destroy statues and change place names. In fact dwelling on the past is counterproductive. Ellon Musk is by no means an even tempered or easy person to work for. He had a child die of SIDS. He said this about grieving:

I'm not sure why I'd want to talk about extremely sad events. It does no good for the future. If you've got other kids and obligations, then wallowing in sadness does no good for anyone around you."
Similarly with the United States. We seem now pre-occupied in wallowing in our past--our sad past. A past that nobody alive now participated in. Yet the past lives on and on and on through our collective mind. That constructed memory really serves no purpose. This is why I am strongly in favor of making Juneteenth a national holiday. We should celebrate and remember the end of slavery. There is no useful purpose in belaboring and remembering the existence of slavery. The way forward is forward, probably with better and more meaningful educations. The way forward does not include circling back a couple of hundred years. Better education means more standards, not fewer standards. The way forward means higher expectations, not the bigotry of low expectations and personal behavioral leniency. Better education does not mean changing names like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson on public schools.

None of us should be seen as the a victim or a perpetrator. As we so often hear these days "we are in this together".

--end of rant--

*Elon Musk was born in South Africa. While a talented engineer and entrepreneur in his own right, the engineers he hired at Spacex to design and build the rockets were American.
Talking about Space X, aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin says "this is the potential of free enterprise".
 
As long as Uncle Sam is the customer.

Lol. Who cares who the customer is? Uncle Sam used to be Russia’s customer both for manned launches and for heavy-lift rocket engines. Space X has changed space economics. It dominates the market.
 
Just so you know. Tomorrow’s planned NASA Mars 2020 launch will be an Atlas V with a Russian rocket engine.

It appears the launch went great. Perserverance and Ingenuity are in the parking orbit.

SpaceX will depart from ISS on Sunday.
 
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