Space and Science BS Thread

Hence why I said some political wrangling would be required and a NATO country destination would help a lot. I believe the question was, "what other viable launch sites at low latitudes are available." If the question is actually, "what option was cheapest and easiest about a decade ago," I think we all know the answer.

Edit: To clarify, the US has exchanged sensitive SLBM technology with both the French and English. In fact, their are still agreements in place to continue to support both countries deterrent programs. So odds are with enough will getting an agreement to launch from French or English soil in the Carribean wouldn't be impossible. Difficult, yes. Expensive to obtain, probably. Worth it to be able to have more flexibility, who knows but it's not crazy to think so.

 

Musk has a history of being a nice guy, negotiating in good faith, until he can't get what he wants. Then he either forces the issue in court or leaves for greener pastures. He's done it with literally every other business he owns and/or runs, why would SpaceX be different?

 

I'm going to add that Musk gets WAY too much credit for being a "good guy," like he's infallible and can do no moral wrong in the public eye. I don't buy into that for a single second. He's chased cost cutting to the extreme with Tesla and exploited government research funding for private gain and patents whenever possible. He also posts genuinely stupid Tweets just to get publicity when real world solutions already exist that he doesn't want to explore because there's not a lot of money to be made in the existing solution. A good example, recently he posted a large cash reward on twitter for a widely implementable Carbon capture technology. Too bad photosynthesis exists already. All we have to do is figure out how to get the energy efficiently out of cellulose and other plant fibers that right now are wasted in biofuel production. Mask doesn't want the easy solution. He wants something incredible, high tech, and most importantly patentable and easy to manufacture for the masses to capture carbon at home while filling his pockets as much as possible. Biofuel doesn't work with Tesla or his plans for the world in twenty years. Some contraption that captures carbon magically does, and so that's what he will pay for.

 

Now for 2 times - yes 2 times in one day - some trusty, reliable old/new tech in a latitude and location with proven range safety:

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1356807508975845381?s=20

 

Musk has very few patents. Tesla has a bunch, but that is his publicly traded company with a board of directors that would almost certainly demand it. Yes he does a lot of what he does on twatter for publicity. That's business, you need to attract attention to succeed. Counter that with all the short sellers that tried to kill his businesses and it balances out.

Running cost cutting to the extreme is what is required to run a business, especially in california. As a company grows there will be more and more waste. If left unchecked you end up with companies that hemorrhage money, like Boeing's space division.

Yes, he wants to make money from his investments. Why is that such a crime? Money allows you to do things, like build rockets and possibly even colonize other celestial bodies. Or deploy more satellites than the entire human race has since our ability to launch satellites He learned the hard way that publicly traded companies suck.

As many people as there are that see him as a Messiah, there are just as many that see him as a easy payday. Whether you want to admit it or not, he EARNED his money. And rather than buying an island and retiring he continues to give back by employing tens of thousands of people directly, and hundreds of thousands indirectly. And by funding research for new technology, if you can prove that the technology is potentially viable. If he didn't make money off that, he would quickly run out of money to find further research and development. That's basic economics.

 

I'm not suggesting Musk owns many patents personally. His companies do, and he's pretty involved for a modern CEO as you mention.

He's left Cali and wants to move his factories ASAP to Texas. Same thing will happen to Boca. He'll either get a more favorable deal for his launch schedule or move things somewhere else. His Cybertruck plant deal is pretty horrific, they sold the town to him/Tesla quite literally.

I didn't say making money is a crime. He's not a benevolent investor is all I'm saying. He's as ruthless as the next billionaire, he's just better at the public image side and he does really upsell his self made image.

I don't doubt Musk earned his money at all. I'm not critiquing that. I'm critiquing his motivations. It's mostly chasing the power, just like anyone else. Yes, he has an ego and wants to be the first on Mars for personal reasons, but it's not for the betterment of mankind. He'll say it is with his dying breath, but it just happens that becoming more influential and making it to Mars are not mutually exclusive.

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Elon Musk is a secret volcano lair away from being a Bond villain.

 

I've seen the deals he's gotten in places like nevada. Yes they gave him a tremendous amount of land to build his factory, and tax benefits too. That's why he built a multi billion dollar facility in Nevada that employs thousands, instead of in another state. That's the government actually working to attract jobs for their constituents. While some states are fighting to attract jobs, California is fighting to drive them away. I doubt he wants to move his factories out, but he can't afford to keep them there. That's what drove the other 12 car factories out, and most the aerospace companies too.

 

Texas/Austin gave Tesla a deal that will take 30-50 years to recoup. That includes all the workers and their local economic effects. In fact, if certain targets aren't hit by the city, they'll never even come close to being in the black on the deal. We are entering an era where it's not about factories moving to other countries because of cost savings. We are seeing factories move because governments are so desperate for the image of local success that they're willing to bleed red on a deal to get it away from another state.

 

What did they give him? Land and tax cuts? In exchange he brings in jobs averaging 20-30/hr. So now thousands of employees are paying more in taxes compared to McDonald's 10/hr. More people will buy/build houses, paying more in property taxes. This increase will attract other businesses because people have more money to spend. And what did all this really coat them? Land that was likely to not sell and taxes they wouldn't have gotten.

 

Yeah, we Austin locals are not happy with our mayor and city council right now...

 

Texas the new California. This is how it starts.

 

They're offsetting the taxes that Tesla would have had to pay by hitting the homeowners harder. When we hit them hard on "you can no longer raise the taxation percentage" they raised home values. When we got the state to intervene on home values, they raised the value of the land our homes reside on.

 

You're assuming that he doesn't have one now?!

 

You're acting like the costs are zero. The city/state has to build and support the infrastructure to support the factory, workers, and spinoff industries. If they can't recoup enough tax off of those workers, because they literally gave money away to Tesla to come to town, you end up paying for a business to be there. Also, to be fair, it's not like they made a single offer. They were the lowest offer, and the lowest offer ever seen for a deal like this, and if that's not concerning to you no amount of keyboard chatter will scare you lol.

Like Ameritruck said as well, if you're goal is recoup the costs from the workers and the supporting industries, you must raise taxes on those groups. No one wants that. So instead they revaluate the land which can lead to a runaway real-estate investment scenario. That's never gone wrong, right?

 

Worse than that, Austin has a bad habit of permitting construction with insufficient infrastructure. All over the southeast side of town are road projects attempting to catch up to construction from 10 years ago. 500+ unit developments with a single 2-lane road in or out.

 

Only in regards to having a very large, educated, culturally diverse population and rapidly expanding economy.

 

They would have to do that for ANY company coming in. Yes it will take them 10-30 years to recoup that investment. How long do you think it is going to take tesla to payoff a 5-30 billion dollar factory? Well let's see, out of 35 Billion in sales they made 700 million in profits. Sounds like they'll be paying off the investment for 5-30 years.

 

Coming soon...

 

I believe it. I read a lot about the Tesla Cybertruck deal because it's really the first deal in the US where a truck plant shopped around for their location and basically got into an area tax free for several decades. It set a standard that's going to hurt a lot of development around manufacturing in the US in my opinion. I know GM is reopening their plant in Ontario, Canada, now for trucks for a tax free deal without a time limit on it. Thank god the infrastructure is already in place for a plant but everyone keeps pointing back to the Cybertruck deal for why Oshawa had to completely drop their pants to get GM back. It also never stops once you do that, Ontario spent several billion dollars in the '09 GM bailout that GM repaid interest free right before the shuttered the factory doors because the deal was completed and their were greener pastures somewhere else.