Elon Musk: "Being at Putin's mercy is not a good thing."

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Naked Snake

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SpaceX CEO and chief designer Elon Musk says that the U.S. must regain its ability to launch humans into space in order to effectively further its space exploration prospects. Currently, the U.S. must buy rides to space from the Russians on the Soyuz, to which Musk says, "Being at the mercy of Putin is not a good thing."
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Video: http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/elon-...ation-being-at-putins-mercy-not-a-good-thing/

Excerpts/Synopsis:

The Russians are charging a crazy amount of money to take American astronauts to the Space Station.

"Being at the mercy of Putin is not a good thing, he's not known for his kindness. Basically he's really pillaging the US tax payer for those rides."

SpaceX hopes to restore America's ability to transport astronauts with domestic vehicle in about 2 years.

After that: Beyond Earth orbit, e.g. a loop around the moon, possibly land on the moon

Next step: Develop a much larger vehicle, what he calls the "Mars Colonial Transport System". Which will be rockets on a bigger scale than has ever been done before, that will make the Apollo moon rocket look small. And they'd have to launch very frequently as well. Which is needed to send millions of people and million of tons of cargo to Mars.


Holy shit at the bolded! I'm getting visions from some anime or something :D
 
Interesting.

I clicked on this story assuming it was about Tesla because it applies very much to that Elon Musk company as well.
 
RSP said:
Elon is mad salty about those tax dollars not flowing in the direction of SpaceX.
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I don't think he's "mad salty".

He speaks the truth. Why pay Putin way more to simply get us into space when we could be co-developing new ways to do just that locally?
 
Vilix said:
We may not need gasoline. But we will need their oil. Oil is in almost a lot of things we need.

http://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/classroom/wwo/petroleum.pdf
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We have plenty of our own oil. It would be nice if we could reduce our demand so we don't require imports. It would be good for economy and national security.

And a lot of things that are made from oil can be made from other things. We just make them from oil because it is easy. But as the price of oil has gone up, a lot of things are now made with the substitutes. And natural gas has also become a huge chemical product feedstock because it is MUCH MUCH cheaper than oil.
 
While I respect his ambition, I have to wonder how much of what he says is fantasy. I don't have enough knowledge of the areas in which he operates to say either way, though.
 
speculawyer said:
We have plenty of our own oil. It would be nice if we could reduce our demand so we don't require imports. It would be good for economy and national security.

And a lot of things that are made from oil can be made from other things. We just make them from oil because it is easy. But as the price of oil has gone up, a lot of things are now made with the substitutes. And natural gas has also become a huge chemical product feedstock because it is MUCH MUCH cheaper than oil.
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True. But, as long as big oil can make a ton of money, and thereby control the government through various special interests and donations to relect congressmen who will push their agenda, we won't see a major push over to alternative materials for a long long time.
 
RSP said:
Elon is mad salty about those tax dollars not flowing in the direction of SpaceX.
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Apparently the $1bn or so SpaceX got from NASA for the commercial crew and cargo programs is not enough support from the taxpayer in his eyes.
 
Lagspike_exe said:
"Putin is charging our taxpayers crazy money, so let me have those monies instead.".
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Uh . . . OK. I'm fine with that. Keep the money, engineering advances, and jobs here. I think it is a great point. I don't mind working with Russia but if we can do it here . . . why not?
 
Isn't it far cheaper to piggyback off of the Soyuz rockets as opposed to how much it cost to use the Space Shuttle? Of course the Russians will overcharge but blame the fact NASA has had their funding slashed and that there really isn't a cheaper alternative that is proven and safe, despite what Elon thinks.
 
It's pretty cool, the dudes a genius and everything, but good lord we have a lot of problems here on earth we could really fix first. Tesla was a start lets work more on stuff like that.
 
Madness said:
Is there necessarily a problem with that? He could possibly be Russian no?
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The question was whether or not he'd find it preferable to be beholden to Vladimir Putin rather than spending the money (probably less money, if what people are saying about Putin's extortive practices here are true) locally.

It's his choice if he wants to reveal his nationality (although I am aware of it). You can find it yourself on his public profile tbh.
 
speculawyer said:
Uh . . . OK. I'm fine with that. Keep the money, engineering advances, and jobs here. I think it is a great point. I don't mind working with Russia but if we can do it here . . . why not?
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Why pay for future private engineering when you can use existing technology for cheaper while developing your own transport system. Musk is acting like NASA has no plans for manned launches to LEO when the Orion capsule is still being engineered and planned for much more than LEO. Seems Musk is just mad that NASA isn't giving him more contracts without proving his vehicle through regular flight.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
The question was whether or not he'd find it preferable to be beholden to Vladimir Putin rather than spending the money (probably less money, if what people are saying about Putin's extortive practices here are true) locally.

It's his choice if he wants to reveal his nationality (although I am aware of it). You can find it yourself on his public profile tbh.
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Never mind, I misunderstood how you meant it, like you were saying no one should ever be pro-Russian or something. Then again, you would probably know something I don't and I apologize.

I agree that the Russians are charging more because they know the US is between a rock and a hard place, but for a LONG TIME people have said the US should have piggybacked off of Soyuz rockets which are reliable and far cheaper than shuttle missions ever were.
 
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