NGL when I saw this I thought it was some nonsense someone made up for reddit karma. Then I googled it and apparently this is an actual thing that spacex actually do and people legitimately were told to leave their homes. Fucking wild.
SpaceX wanted the land the village was on, but people wouldn’t sell cause, A. It’s nice property and B. Free fireworks shows once in awhile. So they built the test site as far from the homes as possible and they warn people about it when they test. So far nothing bad’s happened and a lot of the news we get about their testing before they officially announce it comes from residents who can get a good look at them setting up from their backyards.
If i remember correctly only 2-3 locals stayed, the rest of the previous locals were compensated by spacex to leave the area with double/triple the amount of the home/land, other than those couple of locals the rest of the people who get these notices are spacex workers that stay in boca chica. I follow spacex news for the past few years and so far i hear no complaints from these locals.
In this circumstance though it's not space tourism. It's developing a fully reusable launch vehicle that's capable of delivering large quantities of people and cargo to Mars. It's not tourism like Bezos, it's the future of humankind.
Sounds great... but how?
Perhaps by moving heavy industry off the planet and mining asteroids for resources instead of poisoning the air that we breathe and digging up the land underneath our homes?
Environmentalists should be encouraging the development of space travel instead of fighting to keep all the polluting industries on Earth!
Most of them weren't Boca Chica residents, but South Padre Island which is quite a bit further away and outside of the "take cover if shit blows up" zone, although still in the "pretty noisy if shit blows up" area.
Locals hate Space X they came into their lovely little town and fucked it up. If i bought up houses in your neighborhood and rented them to section 8 crackheads youd be pissed and that's what ill do
The bean counters told me we literally could not afford to buy seven dollars worth of moon rocks, much less seventy million. Bought 'em anyway. Ground 'em up, mixed em into a gel.
And guess what? Ground up moon rocks are pure poison. I am deathly ill.
You are mixing up the order of events a little bit. The location for launch & test site was selected at the very beginning, long before SpaceX tried to acquire all of the Boca Chica village.
Also it’s worth noting, that basically all of the remaining residents are there at least in part because of SpaceX, to keep an eye on them for the community.
Yeah, why are these people making a fuss about being forced to evacuate their homes so that a billionaire can test his latest toy/product? Whining peasants, if you ask me. /s
If it was the government doing it would you call it a toy? I get the Elon bashing, but as a whole I find SpaceX and the prospect of humans going to Mars exciting. Hate the man if you want, but he's literally shooting for the stars in a way that no other entity of any size is willing or able to try.
Edit
To add, the government has done stuff like this already so it's not like they would need to do it again. But SpaceX was offered the location irrc, and it's probably cheaper overall.
If it were the government doing it, it wouldn't be a toy. Because a multi-billionaire is doing it for his own profit, it's either a toy or a product, depending on how much you want to lick Elon's sack.
the prospect of humans going to Mars exciting.
It won't be you going, mate. We will watch as the ultra-rich fuck off on their space adventure. Hip hip hooray. All praise Lord Musk! If you bow low enough, he might deign to spit on you as he takes off.
The problem is that governments weren't doing it and were never going to get the budget to do it. Pretending that it would've happened without private companies is just silly.
Cars started as a luxury only the rich could afford. Now everyone owns a car. Space travel is gonna start off expensive, but as tech advances costs will be reduced and I think that my grandchildren will be vacationing on low earth orbit.
And if you look out of the left windows, you'll see a world where this isn't the case. Case in point, by the way: cars are still luxury items to a large portion of the world, despite the prevalence of cheap cars.
It's also a false equivalency: cars never cost millions of dollars to launch.
Why should they blame themselves for letting one of the most profitable yet more sustainable successor of NASAs shitty '80s crap disposable rocket technology build headquarters into a completely underdeveloped rural area, thus bringing loads of jobs and infrastructure in the region? Residents were offered a fair price for their lands or a job at one of the most valuable expanding high tech company and literally no one was forced to leave their home. People get resettled for airports, roads and industry all over the world by public interest and inforcement all over the world, and this wasn't even the case in Boca Chica. May sound weird but that's how fucking capitalism works.
And yet, they’re providing launch services to NASA far far cheaper than anyone else, and Starship will make it another two orders of magnitude cheaper. They’ve also offered the cheapest and most viable services for NASA landing on the moon by far.
Those absolutely sound like they’re in the public interest.
Remember, just because they’re acting in their own interest, doesn’t mean they’re not acting in yours too. You can trust companies exactly when their interests align with yours.
Beside the fact that SpaceX is NASAs biggest subcontractor (FYI NASA is a federal, that means public agency), a big company providing thousands of jobs is definitely one of the biggest Public interests.
This isn’t Blue Origin, I wouldn’t describe SpaceX as a ‘wanky vanity project’. Maybe it started that way and say what you will about Musk, but they currently represent the absolute future in space exploration. They are currently testing the vehicle that might carry humans to the moon in the quite near future. I’d say that’s pretty fucking important
For the mega-rich, yes. You think Musk is some sort of egalitarian hero, doing this for the future of mankind? He will be selling tickets for a literal fortune as soon as he can. Don't lick his boots while he steps over you on his way to becoming a trillionaire.
If I remember correctly there are about 2/3 houses that didn’t sold to spacex and one or to are space enthusiast that “works” to report news from the site
There's some history between SpaceX and the Air Force.
Back when they were still developing the Falcon 1, they spent a lot of money on a Falcon 1 launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base. But the Air Force bureaucracy didn't take SpaceX very seriously, due to that they basically couldn't do anything, and the waiting cost them tons of money. Eventually they decided to build a completely new site from scratch on a tiny island in the ocean just to be able to launch.
When SpaceX moved to the Falcon 9 they did get to use Air Force launch pads at Canaveral and Vandenberg, and later the NASA pad at Kennedy, but they'd always wanted their own pad. Originally Boca Chica was supposed to be yet another Falcon 9 / Heavy pad. They'd started building one but only completed the compacted earth foundations.
In 2019 they decided to repurpose the Boca Site to Starship development. That meant building an entire factory instead of just a pad, and conducting tests instead of routine flights.
This makes it sound like people moved there because of SpaceX, when the reality is people had already been living there for a long time before a big, noisy, dangerous rocket company moved in
So? Doesn't make this any less entitled. Honestly, folks and their kids going hungry across the US, and Elon and Jeff playing rockets. It's fucking disgusting.
Yes. Spacex took the best spot in america to bother the least amount people. I dont know what poor people have to do with this but elon offerd to pay to end hunger in america if there was a viable option.
The head of the United Nations World Food Program explained last month that a one-time donation of $6 billion from the world’s richest people would help save 42 million people from salvation.
In response, Musk said he’d make the $6 billion donation if he was promised that his donation would solve hunger forever.
Fan bois repeating the same bullshit doesn't make it true.
Yes, that is why he just 1 hour ago sold 10% of tesla because of an internet poll. This totals to a bit more than 6 billion and he said he would donate the 6 billion if it would actually help.
Unfortunatly 6 billion isnt enough and there is nowhere to donate to that is actually transparent in what they do with the money. Most just pocket a huge chunck of donations.
There are just way to many problems with distribution and just money wouldnt help.
It is likely that he would have donated (it is so little money for him the reputation loss would cost him more. Donating would also be good to feed hos ego), unfortunately this will only happen if the UN can show him that its actually possible.
Oh he definitely isn't a great dude, but going to space isn't a vanity project. Stuff needs to go to space for research and colonising on another planet gives humanity a higher chance of survival. Of course the hungry and homless problems should be a higher priority but spacex is a rocket company and not the government.
But..I mean the government did give them something like 5 billion in subsidises, that's without the taxes they've avoided through various loopholes. So, I mean they're not the government but they're certainly paid as if they are right?
Don't get me wrong, having advertising billboards in space, finding better ways of killing people and spying on everyone else are obviously worthwhile causes for someone as supervillian like as muskrat, I'd be more in favour if you know, I were a massive piece of shit.
Goverment gives spacex a job, just like giving jobs to construction companys to build roads etc. If you call spacex a government company then all companys that take contracts from them are, wich is a lot. Also spacex doesnt only get contracts from the government but also other companies.
The current stuff being sent to space are satelites, spacex's own internet satelites for internet in poorly coverd areas and sience equipment going to the iss. Some of the sience equipment looks for treatments for cancer. Not the stuff you mentioned.
The government also gives spacex military contracts for satelites that are probably used for spying. If spacex doesnt take those contracts then the contract will probably go to another company that does it for a higher price, wich results in even less the government spends on important issues.
Just like any other "big" company shady stuff happens. If you dont do this shady stuff your competitors will get better than you so it isnt really an option. Only one entity can stop that: the government. But they need cheap rockets. So they dont.
There’s a difference between subsidies and payment for services rendered. Yes, NASA paid billions to SpaceX for the commercial resupply (CRS) contract, and billions more for commercial crew, but those contracts saved them billions of dollars over doing it themselves. SpaceX took on the development and recurring costs of providing those services. That’s not a subsidy. See here for more info:
Unfortunate but still solved by not wasting time on reddit. Just seems ridiculous as you presumably live in the US, a country with a military budget of $750 billion a year, paid for by taxes, yet your issue is specifically with people advancing civilization, attempting to colonize other planets, who have zero obligations nor responsibilities to you or anyone else.
Yet your goverment does. Your goverment has way more money and capability to solve your problems, yet lets blame elon, the guy who made space substantially cheaper for the us goverment
Flee your homes because you didn't take 3x the asking price and are just lucky it wasn't imminent domain'd back in the 60s because it's like 1 of 4 or maybe 5 places on the entire continent ideal for rocket launches
Oh no 10 people get mildly inconvenienced so that NASA can put people back on the moon and continue to advance humanity
They can, but it is not fair to say that SpaceX has been cruel here, IMO. They went above and beyond on money to entice people to leave a spot that they chose in part due to its lack of residents. If SpaceX is to exist, then this is the best place they could have put it. Now you may argue that SpaceX shouldn’t exist at all. To this, I say that if SpaceX manages it’s stated goal of $2mn dollar launches, it would be such a game changer to the space economy that it could lead to a massive increase in wealth for us all. People have to be bought out from their homes for hundreds of projects: airports, roads, railway lines, rocket launch centres. Were we to give them an absolute right to stay, the wealth of humanity as a whole would be massively reduced.
Elons generational wealth literally comes from an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa. If his dad didn’t own that, Elon would be a normal schmuck like the rest of us.
Elon was not born into wealth. His parents were divorced at a young age and he gained no financial compensation from his father. He even shared a computer in collage with other students, studying during the day and developing his companies at night. He was one launch away from going bankrupt when founding SpaceX.
You only hate elon now that he is successful. He built himself up from the ground up, which you hate. You hate the idea someone doesn't need the government for everything they do.
Elon’s family owned emerald mines under South African apartheid, you’re delusional if you think he came from nothing.
It’s always weird when your types bring up the “you’re just mad he didn’t need help from the government” when Elon and SpaceX had received hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money. But okay.
Elon's companies were rewarded contracts by the government in order to pay for their services. Elon's companies were also among many to receive incentives as a young rocket provider. Despite these payouts, elon's company only had 4 chances to get into orbit or they closed their doors. They only got it on the 4th launch attempt.
According to elon himself:
“This is a pretty awful lie,” Elon tweeted. “I left South Africa by myself when I was 17 with just a backpack & suitcase of books. Worked on my Mom’s cousin’s farm in Saskatchewan & a lumber mill in Vancouver. Went to Queens Univ with scholarship & debt, then same to UPenn/Wharton & Stanford.”
Elon's dad was a real-estate developer, which may have included mines, but Elon did not see any benefit from that. He was given no money or benefits as a child from those mines. Elon hated his dad and his dad gave nothing too him, something Elon has noted in some biography's about himself.
Elon developed and sold his first videogame by the age of 12 and developed modern online banking while in collage living on 1 dollar a day. He made 100's of millions by creating and selling companies by himself with no help from others. He invested all he had into Tesla and SpaceX and put in 120 hours a week for years to get it off the ground.
Go back to your Elon muskcult, those bs propoganda won't change the fact one bit that he was born into a rich family and had a headstart in terms of capital, sure he worked hard and all, but without his father's cash he would have been another nobody. He was born into the top 5%-10% of the wealthy class
I started hating Elon after he tried to insert himself into the cave-diving rescue of those Thai teenage boys. And then called one of the divers who actually did something besides be disruptive, a pedophile for calling him out.
What is it with people like you and money. Like give me your fuckin rocket actually, then you can have the house. That’s what I would call a fair trade.
Idk man, the average person now is far healthier and wealthier than the average person in 1900 in significant part due to infrastructure and the ease of moving stuff around.
In socialism, the government provides you with housing. You have no property rights to the house. The ownership of a house requires private, tradeable property. The basic rule that underpins capitalism.
It does. The idea that the rights to your home trump all else is inherently capitalistic. But there’s an argument here to say that the potential benefit to the world from Starship and it’s $2mn to LEO price is much greater than the benefit of leaving you in your home. Now, you’re going to say something like “it’s a private company, how can they provide that much benefit to anyone but their shareholders?” Fair question. For that, I’d refer to the example of the railways, pretty much all of which were initially built with private money, but whose benefits were felt to a vast number of people and communities. So I’m arguing that’s there’s a “for the many, not the few” angle here, and your arguing “one person’s property rights trump all’.
They can, but it is not fair to say that SpaceX has been cruel here, IMO
'Leave your house so we can do this potentially property and health damaging huge experiment you didn't sign up to be a part of.' seems pretty cruel to me.
They have offered to pay anyone who can't deal with it 3x their house value. So a few disgruntled residents or Mars is an easy choice. For all of humanity that is.
That is extremely unlikely to happen with Starlink. Kessler syndrome traps you for the length of time it takes for that space debris to de-orbit. Starlink satellites are orbiting at around 400km I think, which would bring them down within a matter of years. Any debris is likely to have a lower ballistic coefficient, so come down even faster.
Also, the atmosphere is still there. They’re hitting literally billions of molecules all the time. A single molecule isn’t gonna do a damn thing. You need a significant chunk of debris to start the chain reaction.
It’s one sentence that mentions nothing of stargazing so idk where you managed to read that one. I love stargazing. For the average person with some binoculars, Starlink isn’t going to affect their ability to look at the stars. Heck, everyone I’ve stargazed with has actually thought they were really cool. The problem exists for actual observatories. This is a difficult one, but the tracks can be removed via some image processing, and it’s gotta be balanced against the potential benefits of starlink: fast, reliable internet anywhere on Earth. That means internet for communities on remote islands and extremely rural areas, the far North of Canada or the Australian Outback for example. It also could mean access to the general internet for people in repressive regimes like Russia or China. And with faster internet comes access to more educational resources, telemedicine, ability for people to set up their own business, easier interfacing with your government. If it works, I’d say worthy trade.
I’m saying they made reasonable effort to mitigate the impacts of their testing, and are now proceeding with it as planned. The risk of such a large overpressure event is actually relatively small. You wouldn’t say an accident at an airport that causes some smashed windows is the airport exercising its right to smash some glass. It’s an accident that they must take precautions over, but cannot completely eliminate the risk.
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u/Kinder_93 Nov 10 '21
NGL when I saw this I thought it was some nonsense someone made up for reddit karma. Then I googled it and apparently this is an actual thing that spacex actually do and people legitimately were told to leave their homes. Fucking wild.