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this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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I'm having a hard time getting excited about repeating a mission that wasn't even the best thing we did over 50 years ago, except this time with computers and 1000X the budget.
We did it more times after and helped research greatly. It's like 2% military budget to run NASA so fuck anti-intellectual bullshit.
I'm not anti-intellectual, I was a true space kid, watching every mission after 1965. I was a Apollo 11 super fan. I built models of the Apollo 11 and the Lunar Lander. I kept a subscription to national Geographic for decades because they had such great space photos. I should be loving this.
But it's pretty obvious that all modern space exploration is mostly about giving future trillionaires an option to get off the planet when we inevitably turn on them.
And Apollo was about planting the flag before Russians. Manned spaceflight was never about science.
Valid, but as a kid, I wasn't thinking about it that way. As an adult, I am.
I just read where Musk has applied to add a network of one million satellites. The current plant for satellites between Space X and others means that 1 in 15 visible objects in the night sky will be satellites.
That's for a total of 60,000 satellites. Musk wants to add one million more. That will mean that there will only be one actual, natural star in every 8-10 visible objects in the night sky. Almost all we will see will be Musk's space junk..
The simple enjoyment of the night sky will be taken from every human now, or who will ever exist in the future. The night sky will be destroyed forever, just so the already richest guy in human history can get even richer. It's more important to indulge him for the cosmic blink of time he exists on this planet, than allow billions of unborn people to ever contemplate the wonder of universe.
I say we should help and support them in this project in every possible way. Lets help them get to Mars or Venus. Sound awesome. I would love to read the headline "Elon Musk landed on Mars" and then never have to think about that guy ever again.
No, they don't get to trash this planet, then go to a new one, and trash that. If anything, make them stay here and choke on their destroyed atmosphere, while we escape.
I think you are vastly overestimating the possibilities of living outside of earth. I would argue that theres no way in hell for any of the people alive today to be able to live on the moon, Mars or even LEO comfortably. The rich arseholes won't change the literal paradise the earth is for the hell of Mars. If they manage to make Mars look like the earth, with vast oceans, breathable air and whatnot, sure. But that's just not going to happen. The trillionaires are not going want to live in a greenhouse, on a desert on Mars.
Fact is, humanity is stuck here for the next few hundred years at a minimum. So yeah, lets eat the rich and use the money they have accumulated to fix the planet. Once we've done that, we can look into doing something on Mars.
I hate to break it to you, but MASA's goal is to establish a permanent base on the moon. Space X's public plans have ALWAYS been to get to Mars, and establish a permanent base there. This isn't science fiction, these are business plans, and they are already well underway.
The NASA moon base is planned to start before the end of the decade, so they aren't waiting very long. Judging by past NASA projects, it will take far longer that that, but it is out of the planning stages, and well on its way. They have astronauts up there in space right now.
And Space X is making progress, although they are concentrating more on their satellite deployments, because that will create a massive revenue stream that will fund everything beyond. But you can bet that if Musk sees us getting close to landing on the moon, he'll re-prioritize his focus on Mars.
The future space races won't be just among nations, it will be against Sociopathic Oligarchs, too, with entirely different motivations. And those Sociopathic Oligarchs cheat, so expect some dirty tricks.
There are no rules in space, anything goes.
I know what NASA's plans are.
But like I said, no billionaire or trillionaire is going to live COMFORTABLY in the moon or Mars anytime soon. In a few centuries? Perhaps. But not in the next 70-100 years.
Hate to break it to you but the NASA base is not going to be some sort of luxury hotel where people can just go. Its going to be a very uncomfortable and cramped scientific laboratory.
You are missing my point. I agree with you, space bases are going to be pretty sparse for a while, but the Sociopathic Oligarchs don't see it that way. They are picturing Dubai, Vegas, etc., and they have nobody around them to question that vision.
They'll have trade with Earth, and other bases, probably forever. No country is an island, all of them have to have trade with each other. No country on Earth is entirely self-sustaining, and bases on the Moon or Mars will be no different. Goods will be expensive, but that's okay, they can afford it, so gouge the shit out of them. Who cares if a Big Mac is $1000, they can afford it.
If we are talking about SpaceX then maybe you are correct. I don't think that's even close to true for NASA who are surviving on a much smaller share of the budget than they had in the 1960s.
NASA may still purport to be science-based, but right now, NASA is MAGA, so they are contributing to the knowledge base for "Space Wealth Exploration."
ALL other American space programs have nothing to do with science, they are simply engineering projects to create successful escape pods from whatever is coming - climate meltdown, revolution, nuclear conflagration, etc.
MAGA like all mainstream politicians support science and technology when it suits them and agrees with them, and tear it down when it dosen't. That's just a fact of life. The other parties are no different, nor is the far left. You can see this with all the talk from leftist groups hating on AI and calling for data centers to be dismantled. There are some who call for the deindustrialization of society in general like the whole solar punk movement and agrarianism. The only political groups who legitimately always support science and technological progress in all it's forms are accelerationists and accelerationists come from all over the left-right spectrum.
Actually they made this whole project on a much smaller share of the national budget. That's why it's taken them so long. So this is actually ass backwards.
What you should actually be doing is pulling funding from the military and putting it into NASA and other programs. You spent so much for so long yet are struggling against Iran, a tiny country with a fraction of your budget and man power. It's embarrassing. Stick to things you are actually good at.
I love Space, but rather than assist Sociopathic Oligarchs in engineering their Panic/ Escape Rockets, perhaps we should concentrate on the very serious real and growing problems in our country, and the world, like climate change, health care, homelessness, poverty, infrastructure, etc. we've neglected these things for so long that they are starting get desperate, and yet we're cheering as we spend billions to send people to space for no really good reason, other than national pride.
I don't feel a lot of national pride right now, which has been unusual for me, who came from a military family, and was born in a converted barracks. I don't recognize America right now, and waving flags and cheering on a MAGA bandaid that's supposed to make me forget about EVERYTHING else they are doing to our country, looks phony and ugly to me. I don't see anything happening in America that's worth cheering for. That includes space travel, which has been a lifelong love since the Gemini program.
MAGA has even ruined Space for me.
None of what you are saying really adds up. Yes they are trying to establish a base on the moon and mars. That's a hell of a long way to setting up an independent colony up there that's self-sustaining and actually confortable enough for rich people. Many rich people would rather die than live somewhere like the ISS, and the ISS is miles and miles away from being in any way self-sustaining. They are tied to supply shipments from earth. We are decades away at the minimum from having somewhere fully self-sustaining on mars, the moon, or even LEO nevermind somewhere Jeff Bezos would want to live. Jeff and Trump would die before that happened.
How do you think a self-sustaining colony starts? When they thought of a Space Station, they didn't look at a Mercury capsule and say, "Well, that's impossible, just look at that thing, it's way too small."
They're taking baby steps now, but those steps are going in the direction of permanent bases on the Moon and Mars. I didn't say that it would be successful, or even safe, just that these psychos are arrogant enough to think they can pull it off. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that it can't be done by these Virtuosic Incompetents.
And you are delusional if you think these Sociopathic Oligarchs don't think they can establish a luxury compound off-world for the wealthy to escape the increasing horrors of Earth. It will be a giant resort, a spa, without all the melanin and empty pockets. They're thinking of Dubai in space.
That's how they see it, and they can't wait to create it. You don't think Trump would love to have the Trump Dome on Mars? You don't think Kushner will be stepping off the first shuttle, and opening up a Real Estate Development office? The problem isn't just that they are delusional, but while these people may have a lot of money, they have proven time and again that they just aren't very smart. Trump likes to remind us of that every day.
It's not even that they aren't smart, but they have an amazing ability to delude themselves into thinking that every idea is genius, and they have the money to indulge even their stupidest concepts, so why would they deny the world the benefit of their unsurpassed genius? When confident delusion is combined with unearned arrogance and unlimited money, the result is probably going to be pretty awful.
So they'll build their bases, and theyll fail, hopefully dramatically and catastrophically, and set back space settlement for a century or so, until we can fix our society, and be the kind of civilization that should be spreading into space.