Given the interest in Elon Musk’s flirtation with the Kremlin view on Ukraine, the topic of the Western tech world’s openness to Kremlin narratives has emerged again. I’ve gotten a small spike of interest in a presentation I made at SXSW in 2018. So I’ll share it here again in a downloadable form. If I did the same presentation today, I’d have much to add – including about Elon Musk.
For all of the technological marvel of SpaceX, the public’s awareness of the company helps it power ahead.
Elon Musk has nearly 60 million followers, thanks to both the wonder of his vertical-landing, reusable rockets, and the extensive catalogue of must-see fireballs shared on social media.
Contrast that to Jeff Bezos, who is richer and whose company, Blue Origin, predates SpaceX. Blue Origin achieved vertical-landing before SpaceX, too. Alas, Bezos commands a mere 2.5 million followers on Twitter.
And so, perhaps, he is learning how the current space race is a bit of a popular mobilization effort. Despite his considerable achievement and investment, Musk stands, in the public’s mind, as the primary space pioneer.
That could explain Bezos’ decision to take the battle to participate in the NASA contract to build a lunar lander public.
Bezos has offered to waive up to $US2 billion in NASA contract fees to remain involved in the project.
Somewhat surprisingly, he did this by appealing to the public through an open letter on the Blue Origin site.
“Instead of investing in two competing lunar landers as originally intended, the Agency chose to confer a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar head start to SpaceX. That decision broke the mold of NASA’s successful commercial space programs by putting an end to meaningful competition for years to come.”
Full letter here.
Here is audio of a talk I gave at SXSW in March on how the tech world aids Russia’s war on the West.
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SpaceX delivers to the International Space Stations but the Falcon 9 rocket doesn’t deliver its landing on a floating landing pad.
Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015
What about that cool video of the rocket trying but failing to smoothly back into its parking spot?
Didn’t get good landing/impact video. Pitch dark and foggy. Will piece it together from telemetry and … actual pieces.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015
But SpaceX is at least helping the US reduce dependence on expensive Russian launches to get goods to the ISS.
The Cold War Daily 